Times are Changing

For many years, I used to hate Valentine's Day. I hated the seemingly forced affection, I loathe the little candy hearts with words on them, and I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. This didn't go with my personality much, because I am a very affectionate, very mushy person. Kleenex commercials make me cry, come to think of it, MOST things make me cry. So it was never an issue of me being hard-hearted that caused me to roll my eyes every year on February 14th, I just never really thought is was necessary.
When Cody and I met and got married, he knew that I didn't expect much on Valentine's Day because I told him all the time, "EVERY DAY is Valentine's Day at our house being married to you!" and I MEANT it. He is the sweetest, most thoughtful man in the world, and he expressed it in some sweet way most of the time, daily. Flowers come home on a random Tuesday for no apparent reason, cards left on my bathroom vanity, date-nights planned as a surprise...the list goes on and on.
But as the years have ticked by (almost 9 to be exact)...I think my feelings about Valentine's Day have changed. And this year, I have decided I have figured out why. Two very important things have changed in Cody and I's relationship in the last few years:
***3 small children

***A mortgage

I told my sweet husband at the end of Valentine's Day this year that whoever thought up Valentine's Day must have known that at some point in your relationship, there was a very high possibility that you were going to share things like children and mortgages with the love of your life, and that has a tendency to say, suck the romantic life out of you. MOST of our conversations have something to do with one of our children, their bowel habits, thier eating habits, their behavior habits...you get the idea...OR Money, in some form. Did you go to the bank and deposit that check? Did you pay the water bill? Have we balanced the checkbook? When are you going to the grocery store? Who is picking up Claire from Ballet today? etc etc etc
Don't get me wrong, Cody is still the most thoughtful man on the planet. But somewhere in the midst of three small children, our love language has changed. Bathing the children and putting them to bed after he does the dishes IS one of the sweetest things that he does for me, but if you had asked me 6 years ago if that would have made my cup overflow with love for him, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. Coming in the door after working a 12 hour day, albeit with GROWN-UPS, and saying, "honey, I know the kids were insane today...why don't you go get yourself a Starbucks and a magazine and just chill out for a couple of hours?" makes me want to become his love-slave forever....seriously. So needless to say, my Valentine's Day song has begun to change. Married couples with small children NEED a day to just be romantic, love on eachother the way we did when we were sans babies, and enjoy all of the things that used to be a daily part of our life. I am happy to report that this year, my man did not dissapoint.
I will spare you the details of our Valentine's Day 2009, but I will say this: ANY man that makes his wife and daughters (and son) heart-shaped pancakes is a keeper. Lucky for me, this was only the beginning of an amazing day.
My point to all of this was re-instated when we awoke Sunday morning with a child running fever, a child in our bed, and another child calling across the house for one of us to come help him "wipe my tiny hiny".
It was great while it lasted honey....can't wait for February 14, 2010.