Shannon Phillips

Robin and I made Valentines yesterday for his whole class—I cut out the paper hearts, he affixed the stickers, and I wrote LOVE FROM ROBIN on each one. For the last week at school the kids have been engaged in decorating shoeboxes as “mailboxes,” and today they’ll have a party where all the Valentines are delivered. Sadly, Robin has a cough and a sore throat and I don’t think I can in conscience send him to school. Maybe we’ll swing by around noon to drop off his cards.

It was particularly cute, because as soon as I explained the Valentine project to Robin, he said: “I want a special kitty Valentine for my friend Evie!” Evie—Genevieve—is an apple-cheeked, ringleted little girl at the school, and Robin is very much taken with her, mostly because she shares his interest in running around pretending to be a kitty-cat. It’s their special game and they play it frequently. He calls her his “sister kitty,” and she calls him her “brother kitty.”

“I need to go to school and see my sister kitty Evie,” Robin told me solemnly a few weeks ago. “Evie’s my best friend.” And the sentiment does seem to be shared: Evie will run up and give Robin a hug when he comes into the school, and I’m told that she asks about her “brother kitty” when he’s not there. Anyway, so I did draw a kitty-cat on the Valentine meant for Evie, and Robin was happy with that.

As for me, I got Sam an awesome pair of cufflinks, made from actual Key System tokens from 1945. They’re really very cool. I’ll try to get him to pose in them later!

Update: we did end up going to school for the last half-hour. Here’s Robin’s “mailbox”:

He really enjoyed looking at each Valentine and hearing who it was from.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to Dave and Terry on their 36th anniversary! Happy Anniversary, Nonna and Pappy!