Valentine’s Day Before and After Kids

Posted On February 14, 2012

Valentine’s Day Before Kids:

You and your love muffin meet for drinks after work. You  play footsie under the table for a bit, then head to your favorite restaurant. (Of course, you made the reservations weeks ahead of time to ensure a table.) After ordering, you gaze into each other’s eyes and talk turns to when you first knew you were in love. Your love muffin breaks out into a poem that he just composed on the spot. It’s so brilliant it makes you cry. (But not so much that you make those horrible sobbing noises or your mascara runs down your cheeks.) Sweet, sexy tears. When your entrees arrive, you gladly share with him, and he with you. You even hold your fork out to him as he takes a bite. You each save half of your entree so you can relive the dinner at work the next day, and then you order off the dessert menu. You relax with a glass of wine and remark on all the other happy couples enjoying a nice Valentine’s Day together. At the end of the night, you cuddle together, the only sound being the beating of two hearts…as one.

Valentine’s Day After Kids:

Your husband arrives home to find you scrambling to finish up some work, while the dirty dishes still on the counter from the night before indicate that no forethought has been given to tonight’s supper. Your husband plays “Family Feud” on his iPad while you check emails on your laptop. For an hour you hem and haw about what to do for supper until you finally decide to head to the local steak and pizza joint, with two of your boys in tow. Apparently the restaurant didn’t think it would be busy on Valentine’s Day, so you wait for 20 minutes for a menu while trapped in a booth with two boys who are hopped up on Valentine’s Day candy. One of the boys is literally bouncing. Your husband distracts one boy with secret codes and math problems, while you watch the other boy wipe his runny nose and smear snot across his cheek. You then carry three snotty tissues to the bathroom to dispose of them, wash your hands and dry heave. After finally getting menus and focusing two fidgety boys enough to choose their dinner, you wait some more. The bouncing boy settles down to draw ninjas and attack serpents until he loses his pen to a dad with a geometry problem on his mind. The boy then fixates on a young couple across the aisle, who (of course) were sitting on the same side of their booth. The boy tells you in a not-even-close-to-quiet whisper that the “weird people” are staring at him, when in fact it is he staring at the weird people. The food arrives, and you find yourself having to remind a 7-year-old not to eat spaghetti with his fingers. He then reverts to sticking his lips clear down into his glass of water because his lips are chapped and the spaghetti sauce makes them burn. You wolf down your hot beef sandwich so you can get out of there quickly to avoid further embarrassment. No such luck. After paying at the counter, you all begin walking out the door when you notice not only is one of the boys not wearing his shoes, but he has on one black and one white sock. When you finally return home, exhausted and full, you bark at your boys to go to bed and continue yelling into their room for the next hour, “Be quiet!” then “Shush!” then “Shut it!” then “Okay, you must WANT a spanking for Valentine’s Day!” Your husband and you collapse onto the bed at different times, push over the snoring dog and squeak out “Love you…” before passing out.

Hope your Valentine’s Day was snot-free!

Image from bizior