Valentine Weekend

I’m back in the office today after a “sort of” long weekend. I got to work from home on Friday due to the storm. E and I got out to play in the snow, and I couldn’t help be happy reminiscing about the big Valentine’s Day storm a few years back when Mark and I dug our car out of a snowbank, twice, because the snow was falling so fast we couldn’t keep up. We ended up going out to a nice dinner at Tanglewoods where we had the restaurant to ourselves and had our pick of choice seats. We picked one near the fireplace, had a great dinner, and a guy at the bar (who was waiting for his wife, a waitress, to finish her shift) even went out and cleared our car before we finished eating dinner. Gah! Love that small town hospitality!

I’ve never really needed anything fancy on Valentine’s Day or any other day of the year for that matter. I'm pretty low-maintenance, but we used to always use that day as an excuse to get out and have a nice dinner together. This year our budget is tight, wallets empty, and our hearts are full. We can’t afford a nice dinner out, and I don’t imagine E would be happy if we subjected her to a quiet, sit-down meal at a nice restaurant. We ate left-over lasagna, watched a movie, and had a quiet dinner at home.

But, Thursday night, before the storm, Mark brought us home two roses – a red one for me, and a pink one for Ellie. I’ve always told Mark that I don’t need flowers, to not spend money on them, but I have to admit that being surprised with a little bouquet has been nice when we're able to do it.

When Mark and I were first dating, he had a dozen roses delivered to my office on Valentine’s Day. I had only dated a few other men before Mark, and even though they were long-term relationships, they never sent me flowers. I was fine with that, but when I got Mark’s flowers, I got to have that good, old-fashioned, girly moment that I didn’t even know I was missing. I got to feel special. I felt like saying, “Hey, look everyone! Someone out there loves me!” -- little, awkward, quirky me in the back office of the Marketing Department.

It was the equivalent of being the nerdy girl in high school and having your gorgeous boyfriend, who goes to high school in the next town over, pull up outside the school to pick you up in his new car.

Silly? Sure. Superficial nonsense? Maybe. But, in my defense, mine is the generation of Disney movies and romantic comedies like “Never Been Kissed” and “She’s All That.”

And, I'll always be more than happily content with the every-day romantic gestures, like when Mark makes me a cup of tea, picks up my favorite candy bar at the grocery store, and gets up with E at 2am after I had a tough time falling asleep.

But, when he came home with those two roses, knowing that he had to plan this before Valentine’s Day, knowing that he was thinking of me and E as the holiday approached, my heart melted. Ellie ran up to him and grabbed her rose, cradling it in her arms like a proud Olympian. She didn’t even know what it was at first or why she wanted it. She just knew that she had something special, just for her. She pushed her nose into the tissue paper and played with the ribbon that held together her little bouquet of baby’s breath and single pink rose.

I hardly noticed my red one. I was so taken with the moment, seeing her eyes light up, hearing her little giggles and cooing noises as she fussed over her bouquet. I swear in that moment, I saw her future stretch out before her, teenaged suitors lined up before a beautiful young woman whose father had set some pretty high standards for how you treat the special people in your life. “Good,” I thought. Or, maybe she’ll be the one to help hold a marriage together, even on the bleakest days, with the simplest gestures of love and appreciation.

I put the roses in a vase together, mine and hers side by side. Every time I look at it, I cry. It has nothing to do with petals or stems. I see us, the love we share every day. I see us raising a baby on a tight budget, the love and bond growing and strengthening between a mother and daughter, and a dad who “splurged” by spending an extra two dollars on baby’s breath to fill out the bouquet.

The next morning I woke up to find E fed and ready for the day, my work laptop all set up for me to start working, and a pretty little card with a sweet little love note on my keyboard. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

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Also, on Friday, my first contributing-writer blog post went live over at BVT Moms Blog! If you haven’t already, read about how Mark proposed to me all those years ago when we were two young crazy kids going to school in Burlington -- Click here!