I Heart My Family

This morning when I left the house and headed in the direction of the girls' daycare my brain was doing it's usual run-through, making it's mental to-do list for the day with little empty boxes in front of each task waiting to be checked.

I knew it was Valentine's Day.  Yesterday Callie distributed Lightening McQueen Valentines to her preschool friends.  I patiently sat with her while she scribed her name 30 times on the back of each card. Like an assembly line worker, she passed each card off to me to ad hear the red heart sucker to the card.  Today it was Smurf cards with chocolate hearts wrapped in shiny red foil for her daycare buddies.  Thursday she will wear red to her Kindergarten prep class. 

I added water to my beautiful bouquet of flowers. 

Valentine's Day duties.  Check.

When I left home this morning, I was prepared to let the rest of Valentine's Day slide easily into "inbetween day" status.  I had no steak and lobster dinner planned, no dinner reservations at a dimly lit, swanky restaurant, no couples massage, not even a shmooshy card for hubby or the girls.  And I was okay with this.  Because we've all heard that Valentine's Day is really just a "Hallmark" created day.  Love should be pronounced everyday.  Not just on a corporate manufactured holiday.

And so you know, I do feel loved every day. Love from friends.  Love from family.  Love from my girls.  And maybe that's why I was content to let Valentine's Day slip by.  To let the school teachers and the daycare providers acknowledge the day with Callie and Lexi. 

As my day went on and I continued to make check marks on my mental to-do list but my mind kept scrolling back to my first task.  Valentine's Day Duties.  Check. 

This task wasn't feeling complete.  I started thinking about being a parent and how I have the power to create experiences and memories for my children.  And with Callie on the cusp of starting school and her world opening up to so much more influence, I got to thinking about long will I have before the thrill of a Valentine's card from mom is not so thrilling. And I'm not worried that my girls memory bank will be void and empty if I don't make a big deal out of one Valentine's Day.  I'm not worried because I'm sitting next to a 14 foot cardboard pirate ship that has yet to be dismantled from our last celebration!

On my lunch break today I grabbed a few groceries and then popped into the Dollar Store.  Twenty dollars later, I had a plastic shopping bag with our family's Valentine's Day dinner party in one hand and four helium balloons in the other.  So what if it's just a Hallmark holiday.  So what if I wasn't really feeling it after last weeks birthweek parties. The effort, no matter how little, is always worth it.  Maybe even more so when it doesn't come so easy. 

And tomorrow...a real inbetween day.