We celebrated Valentine’s Day in my classroom today. I made it very clear going in that we were not having a party. We just had an icecream party last Friday and per school policy we are only supposed to have one party a month. But I did promise to give them time to pass out Valentines.

All morning, the students took turns putting Valentines into mailboxes. There were lick-a-sticks and fruit roll-ups, blow pops, tattoos, stickers, pencils, and a bunch of other goodies. After lunch and a brief math lesson, I wrote the rules on cart paper:

• Stay in your seat.
• All treats and candy go home.
• Say, “Thank you.”

Then I passed out the mailboxes. Students began going through the Valentine’s and shouting out their personalized thank yous. There were a few anonymous cards but with a little Q+A we were able to get them all identified. Everybody brought something in this year, and everybody took quite a stash home. Then they packed their bags and headed up to the library for special leaving me alone with my valentines: a pile of cards, a lollipop, a fruit rollup, some fun-dip, skittles, and a whole bunch of chocolate.

There was a chocolate apple, a huge Hershey kiss, two heart boxes of assorted chocolates, and a chocolate rose.

And I shouldn’t eat any of them…

I think this was the hardest test of my commitment yet this year.

It’s been a long, crazy couple of weeks. I’m one day away from vacation. And I’d love to sit on the couch binge eating my well-deserved Valentine chocolate….

But I didn’t. I passed them on to my father (who gave me my love of chocolate). Then I pulled a couple of sliced bananas out of the freezer and made a huge bowl of chocolate ‘icecream’ to eat while watching Dr. Who. It satisfied my cravings and tempered the temptation.

I’m reminded yet again how hard it is if I focus on what I can’t have and dwell on what I miss. Yes, I’ll be craving that huge Hershey kiss as long as I’m sitting there staring at it. It’s so much easier to fight temptation if your hand isn’t in the cookie jar.

Sometimes you just need to let go and refocus. Look at what you can have. Look at what’s right in front of you and be thankful. Life is good. Happy Valentine’s Day!