Be William's Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day to all my family and friends...and anyone else out there who may be reading.

My brother-in-law refers to Valentine's Day as something like "Day of Wretched Corporate-Mandated Excess." Heh. I'm not quite that cynical, but I get his drift. We're not really that into Valentine's Day here. We always exchange cards and little gifts, but it never even occurred to David and me to think about going out to a big dinner or anything. (It's a school night!) And I think neither of us want to spend big money this soon after Christmas on stuff we really don't need, either. (And some of you may know my stance on all the heart-shaped jewelry that all those excessive corporations like to excessively hawk for Valentine's Day.)

That said, we did enjoy our small little tribute to the day. I actually had fun preparing for it this year because I found the perfect Sesame Street Valentine's card for William. However, David had his heart set on a Spider-Man card. So we each got him a card. William, naturally, loved them both equally. I also bought him a copy of If You Give a Moose a Muffin. He is addicted to the other two books that he owns in that series: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Pig a Party. I told him that he could pick out whatever book he wanted for his Valentine gift when we visited Davis Kidd bookstore yesterday, and he gravitated right toward the moose book. It was a touchy few minutes, though, while he wavered over If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Back and forth, back and forth, what to choose? Moose or pig? Pig or moose? In the end, it was Moose 1, Pig 0. For the record, all of the books in that series are terrific. If you have small children and haven't discovered them yet, hie thyself to your nearest bookstore and look for Laura Numeroff.

For me, David ordered a beautiful vase of flowers, containing roses, irises and star-gazer lilies. Back when we got married, I was all crushed when I couldn't have star-gazer lilies in my wedding bouquet or arrangements, but my father, who performed part of our wedding service, is Very Allergic to them. I mean, horribly, evilly, head-swellingly allergic. (Easter is tough on him.) We didn't think it would look so good for the preacher to be weeping and sneezing into his bible when he was supposed to be marrying us. (Especially since he was more than happy to give the bride away, right, Daddy?) So David tries to always give me arrangements with star-gazer lilies because I love the way they smell. But I digress.(Don't I always?) (And could have I used any more parentheses in this post? Geez.) I got flowers, so I was happy. I bought a little box of Godiva chocolates for David, so he was happy, too.

Then Diane, Aaron and Mark all came over to have dinner with us tonight, and William received a stuffed dog that talks and wiggles from his grandparents. While his parents grinned the grins that only grandparents who can go home and escape the noisy toys can grin, David grumbled, "That might have to disappear when Dee Dee and Grandaddy go home." I think it's a darling little dog, myself, and I can think of far, far noisier toys. David just hasn't spent much time in a nursery or toy store recently. I mean, can he really have forgotten all the incarnations of Tickle Me Elmo? Let's see...a little dog that just asks you to hug him or a bright red monster laughing maniacally at a sinus-puncturing pitch? You decide.

William, for his part, just hugged on the doggie...and then put him in Time Out.




















That's his little time out chair. He spent a fair amount of time in that chair earlier today. It may have been Valentine's Day, and it's supposed to be a day All About the Love, but toddlers never forget their primary mission: to get what they want. And so William had a screaming, thrashing temper tantrum at lunchtime that landed him in the time out chair. Luckily for all of us, it calmed him right down. Maybe, hmmmm, maybe that's why he put the eager little dog, with its madly flapping ears in the time out chair. Maybe in William's toddler mind, the dog needed a time out to settle down, too?

Here's William with his beloved Dee Dee and his new little doggie friend:















Anyway, not a bad day at all for corporate-mandated sentimentality or whatever. We had a nice family dinner, and I'm here at home, warm and safe with my boys, and I'm happy.