Many moons ago, I adored Valentine’s Day. I would spend hours deciding which of the cards in my shiny 32-pack of Snoopy Valentines was worthy of the boy I liked. Was “Be Mine?” too direct? Maybe “You’re Heavenly” would be more subtle. These are the questions I lovingly agonized over for years, until I realized that most boys only opened the cards that had candy in them.

Sigh.

Now Valentine’s Day means very little to me. It means there are more well-intentioned sorority girls and smiley a capella groups accosting me in White Plaza than usual. And it means that when I go to Safeway to replenish my RA candy bowl, everything is now conveniently sold in the shape of a heart.

So in an attempt to get myself thinking about Valentine’s Day again, I decided to talk to the wisest people I know: SLE kids and preschoolers.

I questioned SLE kids because they are near and dear to my heart. Dear because I was a SLE kid. Near because I live with them (read: convenient). And preschoolers because, in my world, intelligence is directly proportional to the amount of paste you have on your face.

What follows are some of my favorite answers.

Question #1: What is Valentine’s Day?

PRESCHOOLER: A day where we get cards and eat chocolate!

PRESCHOOLER: It’s a kind of day of rest. Of relaxing.

PRESCHOOLER: Me and my mama make cards for everyone with pink and purple hearts on them!

SLE KID: The day I forget about on purpose.

SLE KID:A day where you can resent public displays of affection and not feel bad about it.

SLE KID:A celebration of one more year of being single.

PRESCHOOLER: I get to wear red tights and a dress!!

PRESCHOOLER: It’s a day of love!

SLE KID: I celebrate my family and friends as well as the potential of love.

SLE KID: We don’t celebrate love, we celebrate the absence of loneliness.

CONSCIOUSLY PRETENTIOUS SLE KID: We celebrate the profound potency of avaricious market forces, naive consumerism, historical obfuscation, manufactured affection and the lamentable exclusivity of the hetero-normative paradigm.

An exchange at the snack table:

ME: What do we think we celebrate on Valentine’s Day?

HYPER LITTLE BOY: Cake and muffins!

ME: ...what about love?

HYPER LITTLE BOY: And pizza! And cookies!

LITTLE GIRL (whispering into my ear): I have cookies at home... maybe I’ll invite him over.

Whether with a smirk or a smile, the word “love” was thrown around a lot in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. Which led me to my next inquiry...

Question #2: So what is love, sweet child?

PRESCHOOLER: It’s getting ready to have children!

PRESCHOOLER: Getting married!

ACTUALLY PRETENTIOUS SLE KID: A potential compatibility that’s romanticized by pop culture and a set of attitudes, beliefs and practices directed at usually but not always at another person in which one feels deep admiration and or sexual attraction.

PRESCHOOLER: I love every single person I know!

JADED SLE ALUM: Love is what happens when you mistake two things you know to be separate for the same thing...

SLE KID: That’s like asking me about God.

SLE KID: Love is ineffable.

JADED SLE ALUM WHO WON’T SHUT UP: ...and a breakup is when you realize those two things actually are separate. It’s a moment of clarity.

PRESCHOOLER: I love panda bears and zebras because they are black and white!

PRESCHOOLER: I love my mommy! She is on a big plane!

SLE KID(s): What is love? (singing) “Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.”

PROFOUND PRESCHOOLER: Love...is love!

Even though people had trouble defining love, they still had strong ideas about how to show it.

Question #3: How do you show people you love them?

MOST PRESCHOOLERS: With hugs and kisses!!!

HYPER PRESCHOOLERS: With CHOCOLATE!

CUTEST PRESCHOOLER: I love my puppy Madison and my cat!

SLE KID: Buy them lots of expensive shit.

SLE KID: To give freely of yourself.

SLE KID: With kisses and smiles and PASSION.

SLE KID: By being persistent.

SLE KID: Give them things they didn’t know they wanted.

PRESCHOOLER: I never hurt them!!

EMO SLE KID: Just rend your chest asunder and cast your throbbing heart at the feet of the one you love. Also, cry.

PRESCHOOLER: Tickle them!

What you should know, PRESCHOOLER, is that when I was little, I used to tickle my blue-eyed, blonde-haired imp of a crush to show him how much I loved him. He later pushed me down the playground slide after he spat on it. I stopped loving him soon after.

Anyways.

So maybe it wasn’t the best idea to talk to my residents about love while they were working on a paper about Dante’s Inferno. And maybe I should have waited until after snack time to talk to a bunch of squirmy four year-olds.

Needless to say, I got some interesting food for thought. Heart-shaped or not.

Natalie Jabbar misses preschool. If you want to be her valentine, send your love to njabbar "at" stanford.edu and she will pick out a Snoopy card just for you.