Our Valentine’s Day

Kenny and I don’t typically do much for Valentine’s Day. While we don’t usually turn down a night out, we much prefer not to fight the crowds on this particular holiday. Instead, we stay in and cook a nice meal at home, which suits us just fine. I don’t really need a special day every year to remind me that I love my husband; I tell him so every day.

Now, the focus of our Valentine’s Day has shifted slightly, to the boys. They woke up on Friday morning to some sweet surprises at the breakfast table, including a few cards that arrived from family earlier in the week and some gifts from Aunt E.

After breakfast, it was time to bring Riley and his first ever valentines to school. He had helped me put them together over the weekend, dropping a little Dove chocolate heart into each bag. The students sat in a circle sometime that morning to exchange their valentines, each kid passing out a treat to the rest of the class. Ms. Amanda sent me a picture, and I can only imagine how cute it really was.

I had packed Riley a very special Valentine’s lunch, and he apparently thoroughly enjoyed it. Ms. Amanda snapped a picture of him holding up his heart-shaped summer sausage, and he also had cheese, carrots, strawberries, and homemade cinnamon tortilla chips, all heart-shaped, too.

Then the two PK3 classes had a little Valentine’s party that afternoon after nap, and all of us went. Even Rory, who skipped his own nap to come, and even Kenny, who was able to leave work early to join us.

 

This was the most well-attended party of the year, which surprised me. It was so crowded in the back room, but Ms. Amanda still found a way to steal the little one away from his daddy for a bit. I think she was shocked at how much he weighed!

 

After polishing off two big pieces of kingcake, Riley picked up his Valentine treat bag, took a quick pic with his girlfriend Alcee, and was ready to leave. Our weekend had officially began.

 

After we got back home, Riley went through all of the loot in his bag and picked out something for a snack (I swear he is a bottomless pit these days). Then we decided it was too pretty to stay inside, so we took a little field trip to a nearby playground. The boys had fun sliding and swinging and climbing and crawling and running and laughing for about an hour before we headed home for dinner.

There’s a firehouse located right next to the playground, and one of the fire trucks was out when we were getting ready to leave. Riley and I walked over so he could get a closer look, and of course one of the firemen came out to chat with us. He turned on the truck’s lights and even let Riley sit in the driver’s seat. Those guys are all just so nice.

Kenny and I did eventually have our nice dinner, after our two sweet boys were in bed. Ken grilled steaks, I made buttermilk blue cheese bacon smashed potatoes and bacon wrapped caramelized sesame asparagus, and we opened a nice bottle of wine to go with it all.

We actually ate at our dining room table, which we hadn’t done in a really long time. (You can usually find us on the couch in front of the tv most nights, computers on both of our laps. Not exactly romantic.) Kenny had lit the candles and surprised me with a gorgeous vase of flowers as a centerpiece, which I discovered when I came downstairs from putting Riley to bed. So sweet. 

We sat at that table talking for almost three hours, which was so very nice. Kenny also cleaned up the entire kitchen afterwards, which also very nice. A perfect and relaxed ending to a wonderful day.

Especially when part of our conversation involved Kenny telling me the story of buying my Valentine cards. He went through the whole selection at the store, picking out a few possibilities for him and for the kids to give to me and holding onto the options. When it came time to choose the winning two, he shuffled the cards back and forth and back and forth and finally settled on what he wanted. He put the rejects back and headed out.

Imagine his surprise the next day when he realized he had accidentally put the “kid” card away and actually purchased two “wife” cards.

So he did what any good husband would do in the situation: he simply went with it. He picked one of the cards to be from the boys, crossed out wife and wrote in Mama, let Riley proudly present me with it, and told me what had happened later.

It’s those kinds of things that make me love him even more. I loved hearing that story, I loved putting aside everything else and reconnecting with him over a nice meal, and I loved just being together, relaxed and with no distractions.

So if that’s what Valentine’s Day does for us, then I’ll take it. Every single time.