What's a Stuffed Bear that Sings "Wild Thing" Have To Do With Valentine's Day?

Valentine’s Day has hit my home and I can only conclude that it’s the most confusing of holidays. I woke up secretly wishing that my husband would present me with some obscenely large and mostly red display of his affection. Dozens of roses in beautiful vases like Reece Witherspoon got from Patrick Dempsey in “Sweet Home Alabama” perhaps, or a date where we travel around, fulfilling my secret wish list like Shane West did for Mandy Moore in “A Walk To Remember.” I would even have been thrilled with a photo-shopped album showing our future children like Kate Hudson presented Matthew McConaughey in “How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days,” except we already know what our children look like. But the truth is that romantic comedies have set our men up to fail and set us up to be disappointed. I doubt my husband is going to run in front of a plane for me (“The Proposal”) or follow me around Venice trying to convince me that we’re meant to be together (“Only You.”) And yet I do know that he wants to be with me because he shows up every day and wades through mountains of laundry with me, paints Styrofoam balls to resemble planets with our kids, and gallantly hands over his paycheck knowing that it’s going to be spent on lots of un-fun things like packaged chicken, big bags of potato chips, and electricity.

It should be enough, but Valentine’s Day makes us want more. The problem is that I’m not planning anything amazing for him either. I can’t surprise him with a trip to New York even though I know he’d love it because it requires months of planning and money I just don’t have. We don’t live in a town with any professional sports teams and the movie theaters will be packed with other uninventive people like me trying to show that we care, but not enough to put much effort into it.

So, here I am without anything. My husband already dropped by the office on Friday and brought me flowers, promising a nice date night. I’m sweating and a little panicked. I already ran through the Valentine’s Day gauntlet at Walmart and I just don’t think cupcakes, monster-sized cookies or animatronic bears that sing “Wild Thing” are the right expression of love. Plus, I just hate spending money on dumb stuff. So I headed home, empty handed.

I walked into my daughter’s bedroom where she was bent over her little desk, working intently on another coloring project. She smiled up at me, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mom.” She hands me one of the papers from the stack in front of her and I smile as I read her handmade card, “I love you Mom and Dad. You mak me relly hape.” I hug her, “You make me happy, too sweetheart.” She giggles and shows me her project which is a stack of handmade cards with big misshapen hearts on the front and inside is the sentiment, “You are my friend.” She’s copied this sentence carefully no less than twenty times and tells me that she’s going to take them to school and give them to all her friends. Then she jumps up and says, “Oh, I almost forgot! I got a Valentine for Sue!” She grabs the Valentine and runs out the front door. I stand on the porch and watch as she runs up the stairs of the house next door and rings the doorbell with her handmade card in her hand. Sue, our elderly neighbor, answers the door and walks out on the porch to get her valentine. My daughter stands on that porch and talks to Sue for over half an hour and I realize that I’ve just witnessed the best valentine ever. No screenwriter could ever duplicate the sweetness of that moment.

By the way, my husband took me to a very nice dinner and we laughed and talked just like we do every other night at dinner, except this time we didn’t have to do the dishes. It wasn’t a room full of roses, but this year I didn’t mind. Valentines isn’t about a once-a-year display of love, it’s about remembering to tell those we love how much they bring to every other day of the year.