Valentine’s day. A day for love. 300% markups on flowers and candy. A day for UPS and FEDEX to actually do Sunday Delivery (extra if you want it in a four hour time block). A day to eat dinner at a restaurant serving a flight menu where you can actually pick the meat or the chicken and everyone gets the same dessert (and you will be out in 1.5 hours). A day where the wine list is 20% more expensive than the day before and after. A day when limos are as plentiful as prom. A day where restaurant coupons don’t work. A day when you BETTER show up with a card, candy and flowers. A day of comparisons: What did you get? Oh look Mary got a bouquet at her home and her desk.
As you can see I think and have always believed that Valentine’s day is a bunch of crap. Ironically, I'm also a hopeless romantic. I think these are mutually exclusive. In my youth I was a willing participant in this day, but come on what do you expect?
As many of you know, I bring Nita flowers all the time, not because I’m supposed to and certainly not because someone else says so. Now I’m not a complete tool, I’ve sent Nita flowers on Valentine’s day. And we’ve gone to nice restaurants as well which, by the way, we do all the time anyway. I usually complain the whole time (not all the time, just on Valentine’s). However, 9 years ago we started a little tradition. I created a scavenger hunt in our home. I would hand make about 20 cards, put clues on them, and little notes in each one and then hid them around the house. Some of the notes are quotes, some are lists of things we’ve done, places we’ve traveled to, milestones, etc. Some contain song lyrics, and some are dancing stations. It’s been nice. We would then cook a really nice dinner at home and open a nice wine, unless pregnant or nursing.
Then the kids came. So we didn’t have the same amount of free time and had to keep a close eye on naps, nannies, and feeding times. This is where I relaxed my rebellion against hallmark and sent flowers a couple of times, but the hunt lived on. This year however, I thought Connor was old enough to help. So I got Scooby doo and dolphin cards, made the map, attached the clues, printed out the love notes, song list, dancing stations, and milestone list. I went home a little early and hunt, or at least the hiding, was ready to go. My vision was that this would be a more family fun scavenger hunt and the song stations would include songs that Connor can sing and the dances would put Josie in my arms and Connor in Nita’s. The best laid plans. A few hours prior to the hunt…Connor spiked a 104 temperature and started crying. Poor thing, it was full stop on fun. Instead it was bath and ibuprofen. We then changed into damage control mode, soup acquisition, and low excitement. Nita was mad. I think a key component was Nita went out and took both the grandmothers flowers with Connor in the morning. AND, she went and got me a couple of gifts, things that I actually wanted.
Now I know a lot of you are sitting in judgment thinking that I should have also brought flowers, or a store-bought card. To you I say, WAKE UP SHEEPLE! That is the trap! My argument was: “I bring flowers all the time. Why is some husband who brings Valentine flowers and is a dick the other 364 days of the year a better husband? If that is the criteria, I can save a lot of money and a ton of time and set up a recurring order on a flowers website. I can spend 15 seconds and meet that ‘model’ husband status forever or until my card needs to be updated.”
Sometimes when we lash out it evolves into something completely different from the initial point of the argument. And once we really start communicating it all comes out. That’s what happened, our little tiff turned into some tears, but once we drilled down and got through the facts everything was all good. So communication is really the great problem solver. Bad news doesn’t get better with age, so if something is up, get it out. Don’t let it morph into something more. And humorously enough, have you ever been watching a sit com and some TV couple is having an argument? Invariably one of them will make a leap that makes you shake your head and say…where did THAT come from? On TV it’s funny. Here it reminded me of the fact that we’ve been spending so much energy on the kids that we need to keep working on the “us.” I think we’re about ready for an adult overnight, just the two of us. Last one was about 17 months ago.
Connor was feeling quite a lot better the day after. So last night we did the family scavenger hunt. And it was FUN. Connor was helping mommy decipher the clues and guess where the next card could be found. He loved the Scooby doo cards and so did Josie. Josie giggled and drooled as she chased everyone around the house to help find the next card. I even made the clues a little easier and placed the cards around Connor’s eye level or lower. So I think we had a great family fun night. We had a date night last weekend and I think another coming up this weekend. So what do you think? Did I beat Hallmark? Or am I making too much of this? Damn you Hallmark!
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