Sticks and Stones

Valentines Day seems to have diminished. Year by year it seems less attended to. Grocery stores devote less aisle space. Candy seems to get cheaper and waxier. And the little Valentines that the children give out to their classmates seem to shrink in size so that you're left with a small square of a paper with which to scribe your feelings to your beloved classmates. With all that said, we still cherish the day because it gives us a chance to tell the ones we love that we do love them, in case we forget any other day of the year. If we're good (like myself) we express love every day. I feel I express it in many forms. I wash your poopy underwear child, that means I love you. I pick out the pee soaked tights that dearest daughter left in the bottom of her dirty clothes hamper to rot and stiffen like a clothing corpse. This means I love you. Although years later when you read this, you won't equate it with love. And I love my husband. He's so much fun to me. His humor every day, his way of making me laugh even when I have every reason to be mad...that's love. That's devotion. And I'm so thankful for it. Rob and I don't do anything for each other on Valentines Day. I'm not a sentimental gal. And that's alright. He isn't either. So we express our wishes for a Happy Valentines Day and move along. No hard feelings harbored. But what do we remember most for Valentines Day? The unique things. Take for instance the things I saw in rooting through my children's homemade sacks of Valentines. There were homemade cards. I wonder..do parents feel that homemade cards created on thin printer paper, in a blue bic pen are sentimental or they've given up? Don't know. I'm assuming the better thoughts on that though..that homemade says I care. There were little bits of candies. And little expressions as we always remember Valentines Day to possess. Be Mine's and Kiss Me (please don't until your 16 children...ya hear me). But there is one gift given this year that I think my entire family will remember. You're on edge of seat, waiting for me to reveal it. Get your tissues you're thinking right? No. I arrived home from work, after picking up the three youngest children. Grant comes to me and says "Mom, Aedyn got a stick for Valentines Day". A stick? A stick, really? Aedyn chimed in, "It's true Mom". It didn't sound right so I asked him to bring it to me. It was a skewer, one you use for kabobs. It was cut in half. And there was nothing on it. No residue of fluffy hearts, no remnant pieces of a candy wrapper or waxy glue gun leftovers---just half a stick. Awesome. Who knows what its mission was in life. But it will always be the Valentine that we remember. A half a stick. Grant and Laura thought it was cool. My kids won't remember the candy or the cheap bic pen Valentine this year. They will remember something different, the stick with no indication as to what it was intended for. So lesson learned...to stand out..be a stick.