Thoughts on Valentine's Eve

Older kids can complain all they want about how hard they had it compared to their younger siblings but I keep telling our young adult children that we used to have lots more fun on holidays.

It's true. When our kids were little,  I decorated our kitchen/dining area with dozens of construction paper hearts before they woke up. (It was a fun spin on the term "heart attack".) We made pink heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, even if Valentines fell on a school day and I created all manner of heart-themed dishes for dinner.

Things have changed.

Late Saturday night I realized that V-day is Monday. I forgot to send care packages to our college kids. I didn't buy a gift for my husband. I've got to show up for jury duty in a neighboring city by 8 a.m.; thank goodness there's plenty of leftover french toast for breakfast. Yesterday we were so rushed to make it to a niece's wedding festivities and to prepare for Sunday (including a sacrament meeting musical number) that I forgot to buy candy and valentines for our youngest son to distribute at school. Also, this IS the year that he didn't make a generic valentine box or bag in class. Instead, students were invited to participate in a best-decorated Valentine box contest. He had a major audition this past week and is preparing for another in a few days so today is his only chance to create a cardboard robot to receive valentines. It's covered with tinfoil and scotch tape. One arm keeps flopping down. I can only imagine the cute creations other kids are going to show off tomorrow but the boxes are supposed to be the kids' work, right? My husband and I were busy preparing dinner anyway and visiting his mother who isn't well.

So . . . I've spent a lot of time showing love in other ways. It's enough.

In the meantime, I'll stop writing and see what we can do about the Valentine robot's arm.