Valentine's day with big kids

Now that the calendar has ventured into February, I'm keen to say something about love and hearts and sparkly, pink glitter. Personally, I tend to leans toward the state of a mind that Valentine's Day is a made-up, greeting card holiday. But my kids love it, and I feel duty-bound to try to make a tradition out of every little thing so they'll forget those times when I was a screaming lunatic and locked myself in my room because THREE HUNDRED SOCKS ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR.

Plus, Valentine's Day can be a bit of let down for teenagers, particularly girls. I've realized of late that Rebecca is a hopeless romantic, and hopeless romantics especially love Valentine's Day. And sometimes, you've just got to help a hopeless romantic out.

From the time our kids were little, Sterling and I have celebrated our kids with a special Valentine's breakfast. We decorate the table and use heart plates, and I gather a few small, lovey gifts to put next to each place setting (and by lovey, I mean clothes for the girls and something weapon-like for PJ). In years past Sterling has made pink, strawberry milk, pink scrambled eggs, and heart shaped pancakes alongside hashbrowns and bacon and any other fatty breakfast concoction we can dream up. One year we even hung pink and red and white streamers and balloons in the doorway to the kitchen so the kids could run through. It was very . . . celebratory.

As the kids have entered high school (with early morning activities), we've had to adjust the festivities (because no one really enjoys a Valentine breakfast at 5:15 AM). I think this year we will have a Valentine dinner the night before (Thursday night) -- but we'll be serving breakfast for dinner, which is one of my favorite things in the entire world. So I'd better get thinking about decorations and menu items.

This recipe for Cream Cheese-Stuffed Lemon French Toast with Strawberries seems, well, divine. 

via OurBestBites

Or these Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes with Berry Sauce. I've actually made these before and loved them, but be sure to double the recipe because the kids need a lot to fill them up.

via OurBestBites

Oh Happy Day has an entire list of fun ideas. I'm kind of hip on Heart Balloons in a Closet. It's a simple but unexpected surprise to brighten up my family's day. 

via OhHappyDay

These fantastic fruit stickers have been making their way around the Internet for a few years now, and I'm thinking of printing some out for lunches. Nothing says 'high school cool' like lovey fruit stickers. 

via Twig & Thistle

I'm also considering this heart t-shirt. They had some hip, raglan-sleeve heart shirts for a while, but they seem to be gone. Need. Raglan. Valentine. Shirt.

via HelloApparel

And for my daughters who are far, far away? Love these printable love cards by Jones Design Company. 

via JonesDesignCompany

Sharing a little love on Valentine's Day is a fun, memory-filled tradition for our family. And since that family is currently winging its way out the door -- I plan to live it up while the getting is good! Hearts for everyone . . .

Like Calvin and Alice

Calvin Trillin's ode to his wife, About Alice, remains one of my favorite snapshots of a marriage.  Alice was a frequent feature in most of Trillin's writing and a muse and lodestar in his life. This slim, unabashed love letter of a book makes clear that he was smitten in a very real, long-lasting way. It's not a weepy, maudlin elegy but a funny and poignant tribute to the woman he clearly adored and still does.

He writes, "I once wrote that tales about writers' families tend to have a relation to real life that can be expressed in terms of standard network-television fare, on a spectrum that goes form sitcoms to Lifetime movies, and that mine were sitcoms. Now that I think of it, maybe they were more like the Saturday-morning cartoons. Alice played the role of the mom--the voice of reason, the sensible person who kept everything on an even keel despite the antics of her marginally goofy husband. Years ago, at a conference of English teachers where we were both speakers, the professor who did the introductions said something like 'Alice and Bud are like Burns and Allen, except she's George and he's Gracie.' Yes, of course the role she played in my stories was based on the role she played in our family--our daughters and I sometimes called her T.M. which stood for The Mother--but she didn't play it in the broad strokes of a sitcom mom...she was anything but stern. She had something close to a child's sense of wonderment. She was the only adult I ever knew who might respond to encountering a deer on a forest path by saying 'Wowsers!'

"There was one condolence letter that made me laugh. Naturally, a lot of them made me cry. Some of those, oddly enough, were from people who had never met Alice. They had become familiar with her as a character in books and magazine pieces I had written...about traveling or eating or family life. Virtually all those letters begin in the same way, with a phrase like 'Even though I never really knew Alice..." I was certain of what Alice's response would have been. 'They're right about that,' she would have said. 'They never knew me.' 

"...Still, in the weeks after she died I was touched by their letters. They might not have known her but they knew how I felt about her...I got a lot of letters like the one from a young woman in New York who wrote that she sometimes looked at her boyfriend and thought, 'But will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?" 

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- This made me wonder: Who are your lodestar couples--the ones you maybe aspire to be like, as Calvin and Alice were for the young letter writer? Are they real or fictional? Do you know them personally or from afar?

- Listen to Calvin Trillin's interview on About Alice 

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p.s.  On a personal note, I'm celebrating with a happy dance in the kitchen and an afternoon of novel reading just for fun because last night I sent in 70 pages of my dissertation to my advisor! (Technically, it's part of the dissertation proposal but will also be the substantial literature review of my dissertation itself.) Just had to shout that from the internet rooftops. I'm beginning to think maybe this really will happen, folks! Except on the days when I'm ready to throw in the towel, that is. It's a toss-up these days (just ask Sarah, who lets me vent about it on an almost daily basis).

A few good gems

via OLadyCakes

Hi all! We've got a small case of day-after-the-4th lethargy. I'm hoping to shake that off in an hour or so and get my day moving. I'm especially excited because my oldest (the missionary) flies to France today -- and that means she gets to call me from the airport! She has a FIVE HOUR layover in Chicago, so I can chat with her for a good long time. I've sent her a calling card, but I do worry -- this child who's had a cell phone all of her life -- will she know how to use it??

 

While I'm waiting anxiously by the phone, here's some cool links I happened upon this week: 

• Got all the ingredients for this in my pantry. Can't wait. 
• Do you guys know Mara and Danny from A Blog About Love? I'm not-so-secretly hoping to run into them when I'm in Brooklyn in a few weeks (you know, because NYC is so tiny and all). I found this post on mother love fascinating and insightful. And true.
• Baking and mental health -- a connection. I don't know about you, but a chocolate chip cookie helps soothe my inner beast. Check out this Guardian article -- and get baking! 
• Who does the dishes? And why? This article claims that sibling roles influence adult gendered work divisions. I think . . . YES!
• I know the 4th was yesterday, but I'm celebrating America all month. Here's a fine list of American short stories (full text) to mark the occasion. Start with Kate Chopin's "Regret." So good.
• Looking for an innovative summer craft? I'm thinking about gathering my kiddos and trying out these cool bracelets. Surprisingly, the best braid-er/weaver in our family is my husband. He can (from memory) make any boondoggle design you can imagine. I know. Who doesn't love a good boondoggle?
• I tried this grilled salmon recipe this week. Easy and tasty. Two thumbs up. 

Adeste fideles

Once upon a time, I wandered the aisles of my brain for weeks trying to think of a meaningful gift for my husband's birthday. I finally decided on a well-deserved, long-overdue surprise trip. I saved up. I schemed. I contacted a handful of his best buddies from high school to see if they'd be willing to meet up for a ski weekend to celebrate G's birthday. These are lifelong friends who really get each other, great guys. Happily, they were all keen on the idea so they flew in from Oregon, California, and Arizona, meeting four more friends who already lived there in Utah. It was on.

Once he got a seat on the plane, G called to tell me goodbye and thank you, that he made his plane, and that he accidentally took my credit card with him. We were chatting away when in the background I heard a woman say (obviously to G), very clearly, "hi! do you mind if I sit in your lap?" + playful laughter.

Now, maybe there are some situations in travel I'm not aware of where sitting in a strange man's lap (or offering to) would be advisable.  I can't really think of any right now. Or, let's give her the benefit of the doubt...maybe G was accidentally sitting in her seat.  But, still.  It rankled.

I piped up on my end of the line "um, I do!"

He relayed, "my wife says to tell you she minds."  We all laughed. Hahahahaha.  (Grrrr.)

. . .

It was kind of funny. Except not really.  

It's been a tough decade for the marriage model, fidelity wise.  It feels like every month there's a new scandal about someone (Say it ain't so, Dave! And Tiger. And various governors. And presidential candidates. And other politicians and celebrities. And other acquaintances. And friends' husbands.  Say...it...ain't...so.)

I hate that this betrayal happens, especially when it's to people I love.

I'm sad that with every new story another whisper of a fear enters my marriage heart, despite my trust in G.  I really do trust his love and goodness. Even saying that, the whisper pipes up "that's what all those wives said, too." 

(And you know what else? It rankles that some women feel free to flirt with other people's husbands. We should be better to each other than that.)

. . .

Because marriage is a leap of faith--in the institution of marriage, in yourself, and in your partner. And fidelity (the Latin fides, meaning trust, belief, faith) is the privilege and price of that unique, wholehearted relationship that marriage offers.  

Adeste, fideles. 

Because:

photo by Gemma Collier

My grandfather was born and raised on our New Zealand farm. He and my grandmother were married nearly 60 years. Preparing for a photo in the barley, my grandmother lovingly reached up to adjust his hat. This was his last harvest.

Gemma Collier, National Geographic Photo of the Day, 11.04.09

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On a different but slightly related note, this post from A Blog About Love responds insightfully to a reader's question about feeling hurt when your man notices another woman. 

Date night

My sister-in-law mentioned recently that one of the benefits of parenting older kids is better dating. So true! No need for a sitter for weekend dates AND picking up and going out of town, just the two of us, no longer requires three packings lists, 27 pages of instructions to the lucky sitter, and eleven hours of deep breathing. I'd have to say that Sterling and I make a valiant effort to avail ourselves of this new-found dating freedom, but even now we get bogged down in the kids' activities, our own work and personal commitments, and just plain old exhaustion.

Recently, the planets aligned for a brief moment, and Sterling and I found ourselves home WITHOUT kids for TWO days. I know. That's never happened before in our 19+ years of parenting. It was weird and fun all at the same time. Just think: No driving anyone anywhere. No sharing the television (or Netflix). Heck, we even polished off the ice cream ALL BY OURSELVES. [Note to self: once kids are grown, do not stock ice cream.] Not wanting to waste this rare opportunity of kid-freedom, I called Sterling at work just moments after the last child walked out the door.

Me: "Hon. There are no kids in my house. I'm freaking out. I'll plan a fun date for us tonight, and you plan one for tomorrow."
Sterling: "No kids? What does that even mean?"

For my turn I picked up sushi (not from the cheap-o place but from the good place). I bought some good chocolates and a movie and set everything up in the living room. We ate up to the coffee table (with candles and pillows) and spent a good hour just rehashing the last week or so before we started the movie. The food was great, the surroundings were infinitely more comfortable than a restaurant, and no waitress was hurrying us along. It was simply good, quality connecting time. After which I didn't twitch so much when Sterling waited till the last minute to get ready for church, and he  laughed good naturedly when I left him a car with no gas. Connection people. It heals a world of petty hurts.

The next night Sterling opted to go out. He planned a date almost identical to one we'd had before we became parents. We went out for steaks, then played miniature golf and raced go-carts, and ​topped the night off with ice cream. It was way more activity-centered than our typical date nights (meaning at 8:30, when we finished dinner, I had to stave off my old-woman-need to lay on the couch). But best of all, the slightly rag-tag putting greens reminded us of dating days of yore. It was actually much more fabulous than the family fun center might initially suggest.

​By far, our favorite "typical" date night consists of dinner at a good restaurant and an hour spent wandering through a book store. A few times we've driven to a neighboring small town (we live in the burbs) for dinner, afterwards riding around the countryside (in a pickup truck) looking for our future weekend estate. We are seriously considering (there might be some arm-twisting involved) joining a fitness group together. We've long talked about getting season tickets to the Alley Theatre. In short, the livin' it up portion of our marriage is just starting. I like to see-saw between a sobbing mess that my kids are leaving and fiendish glee about some down time and free wheeling.

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I realize it's from 2008, but I can't help but enjoy this Guardian article on dating as a means to reconnecting with your spouse. As a bonus, the article gives a cheeky, "M'lud," which, as an Anglophile, I find especially delightful.​

There are a number of these His & Her 'lists' circling the Internet. Essentially, they are lists of questions to stimulate conversation between partners. I haven't tried them yet, but think they'd be a great way to focus on something other than our kids (who are lovely, by the way).​

A few good gems

Just wanted to pass along a few things from around the web that caught my eye or struck a chord this week. They're the kinds of things we would chat about over the back fence if we were neighbors (oh, if only!):

Pinhole Press is introducing some cool new photo wall decals. They're filed under their wedding section but I think they'd be great fun in a collection on a teen's bedroom walls.

Anne Lamott's account of her crash course in acceptance when her teenage son became a father gave me a lot to think about.

This TED talk by Esther Perel is a fascinating discussion of love and intimacy in long-term committed relationships.

On childhood lapses and concealment, My Twinkie Barricade had me laughing and remembering my own hiding places.

Where do you fall on the guilt spectrum?  In this essay Ruth Whippman talks about guilt and its uses and misuses, especially in families. Loved this line: "Guilt is an heirloom emotion, a moth-ridden quilt that no one can quite bring themselves to throw out."

Michelle reminds us, in her post for 3 Things for Mom, that big kids need tucking in, too.​ 

Dalene had some terrific insights on teens and the emptying nest in her Segullah article All I Really Needed to Know I Learned After My Kids Were Too Old for Kindergarten. 

Please do chime in! What did you read this week that struck a chord?​ 

Have a great weekend!​