Do you know that I have not had a truly rotten Valentine’s Day in 21 years now? Granted, the first present Rod gave me 21 years ago was pretty weird, but I was just the new chick to hook up with at that point, and he hadn’t been as well trained as he is now. Also, I now have a squad of friends who take him aside before each holiday to discuss his plans and give him secret directives. But I digress. My point: some days I just can’t believe this is really my life; somehow I firmly believed I would die a virgin and a dateless wonder, and now look, 21 years of romance (or what passes for it around here) and these adorable little people who are ours! I wish everyone could feel this lucky.
We didn’t have big Valentine’s Day plans. The kids had minor parties at school Friday and received just enough candy to get a little sugared up (even though I don’t really believe in the sugar=hyper thing), and we had dinner with friends Friday night. Rod annoyed me by being counter-productively hard on Carl during the bedtime scramble, and then he opened his Valentine’s Day present by accident and I took offense at my surprise being blown, so that I could feel especially bad about being such a grump the next morning, when he surprised the three of us with boxes of fancy chocolate. I am not so much into chocolate, but for Valentine’s Day I make an exception, and that box is just about empty.
Also, Rod helped Ruby with a grand plan to surprise me she’d put together last week. She gave him a note for me to find Valentine’s morning from my “secret admirer” and instructions to follow the path of the paper hearts she’d made, which led to—Surprise!—Ruby in the closet! Not to be outdone, Carl made a little path of notes for Rod to follow to find a present he had begged me to buy, and then hidden for Daddy, which was a travel version of Yahtzee. No, we’re not sure why Yahtzee, and no, Carl can’t really do enough math to play it. But Rod was impressed by the sentiment and the plan.
Saturday there was kid class at the nature center, and then we had lunch out, and then a friend and I took our kids to a play in the afternoon. The play was pretty good, superheroes and princesses, with a little “you can’t judge a book by its cover” theme. At the end, the actors took questions from the audience. Carl raised his hand high to ask the first one. I was amused that he was so brave and curious as to what he wanted to know. The little future engineer didn’t care about the plot, no, he wanted to know about the set up: loudly and clearly, in front of 150 people, he asked why the stage lights had colors. The answer was sort of vague, but Carl was satisfied. It reminded me of all the times I’ve hung around my dad or Rod and they’re looking at the ceiling and suddenly they start yakking about the support structure of the building or the plumbing or the sprinkler system or the granite on the floor. At the end of the theater Q&A, some guy proposed to his girlfriend, which made stupid sentimental me tear up, even though I don’t believe I’d really want to be proposed to at a children’s theater.
Saturday afternoon, I got stood up by two rental house showings, and then we went to another friends’ house for a Valentine potluck, which was quite nice and very tiring.
Sunday started okay, then Carl pushed a whole bunch of my buttons at once and I turned purple and exploded with rage. Well, I just wanted to, but I didn’t. It wasn’t so much the unreported and unattended spilled milk all over the pile of papers, and the failure to get dressed when I asked him nicely, as it was the eye-rolling, funny noises, and general defiance. He will be such a fun teenager.
But later, after an exile to his room and after I calmed down a bit, Carl hung around the house playing Legos by himself for a very long time. Like, almost all day. You can’t say he doesn’t focus when he wants to. It finally stopped raining, I managed to show the house a couple of times, once to a woman who smelled like weed (but nonetheless assured me she doesn’t smoke), and once to a nice couple who seem both ideal and genuinely seriously interested, please, please, please, please…. I really hope that one works out. The afternoon ended with a family bike ride all the way to the grocery store to buy snacks for Carl to take for his class today. Then Rod made dinner while the kids fought and then I read Batman comics to them to calm them down.
I can’t tell if the kids are getting well or not; I suppose they are a bit better overall. Carl is still oozing from one eye, which makes me think maybe the Zithromax isn’t going to cut it and he needs tubes again. We are trying to train the kids to use those nasty sinus washer squirt bottle things, but it is slow going. As for me, I am finally regaining an interest in food (see chocolate, above) and have stopped Googling symptoms of various abdominal cancers; yes, it seems I may live through it.
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