NS February 15th, 2007

I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t say I hate it, but it’s not a holiday (and I use that term loosely, it’s more like a marketing campaign) that I’ve ever embraced. Paul always gets me a card and sometimes flowers but since we celebrate our wedding anniversary on the 5th and we usually get each other gifts or go out to dinner for that, we’ve never made much of a fuss of V Day. I’ve even been known to host the occasional Anti Valentine’s Day party, complete with lethal cocktails, Cupids with arrows through the head, broken hearts decorating the walls, and a fun game of Pecker Ring Toss with the girls. Though after the debacle of ’05 in which I gave myself and three close friends alcohol poisoning, trashed my flat and broke all of my glassware, staggered to the local hot dog van for a mustard-slathered wiener, forced a black cab to drive me all of 4 blocks because I couldn’t remember how to use my legs and then crashed a house party, I wasn’t allowed to host those anymore. Hmmph.

But last night we actually had a nice, romantic evening and I didn’t once feel like I was in a Hallmark commercial or that I was going to be sick. Paul brought me some gorgeous roses and helped out with getting Amelia to bed the moment he got home, and I prepared dinner while he mixed some (non-lethal) cocktails. We had a little, ahem, alone time, the details of which I will spare you since a pair of family eyes are reading (sorry if you’ve been blinded, Andrea!), and then it was a lovely dinner of steak, green peppers stuffed with rice, cannellini beans and tomatoes, roasted butternut squash and caesar salad, accompanied by a nice shiraz. It was heavenly. Paul proved how much he loved me by sitting on the sofa and watching Desperate Housewives with me while we had dessert (coffee, tiramisu and raspberries). He also gave me a surprise gift, a ticket to see the Barenaked Ladies on March 30 at the Hammersmith Apollo with our friends Libby and Andy. He said he wanted to help me along with my goals that I listed on my previous post and knows how much I’ve been wanting to get back into music and concerts. Can I just reiterate how wonderful my husband is? I’ll be thinking of him when I’m dancing around to “If I Had A Million Dollars.”

The evening ended with us curled up in bed, looking at our wedding album. We normally do this every year on our anniversary but since he’d been away this year, this was really more of our anniversary date than Valentine’s. Flipping through the pictures, remembering that day and how in love we were (are) made my heart swell. Things have changed since then, yes. We’re not as footloose and fancy free and we have more serious responsibilities, but the funny thing is, we don’t look back with wistful nostalgia because those were the ‘good ol’ days’ and we mourn it. Instead, I study my pre-baby face and smile knowingly at the girl in the white dress, cosmopolitan in hand as she swirls round the dance floor. She doesn’t know it yet, but as much love as she thinks she holds in her heart that day, there is so, so much more to come.

It will knock her sideways with the intensity, the tenderness, the unconditional protectiveness. The lioness with her family, the fierce mama and wife, shielding her loved ones from the ills and predators of the world. This is what matters now, this is her life. And even though she doesn’t know it yet, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t so bad after all.

• Parenting 101 , Squish Squish
• Comments(1)