Showing the love

I don't know when it happened, but sometime over the last six years, Valentine's Day became much less about doting on the love of my life and more about helping the little people in my life find ways to celebrate the occasion.

It now means to me less time spent editing the perfect love poem, and more time spent contemplating how many packages of heart-shaped doilies will be enough for the entire kindergarten class.



Less time researching a new romantic restaurant to try (O.K., no time doing that). More time explaining why there can be such a thing as too much chocolate before dinner.



Less time lighting candles and cuing up Miles Davis' "Love Songs" on the CD player. More time helping little hands make chocolate cookies and sushi for our special night. Yes, sushi.

This year, Valentine's Day still comes with the usual flowers, chocolates and pretty packages with pink ribbons attached.

Only this year, the flowers were given to me by a little girl, who adores fuchsia roses as much as I do.



This year the packages -- three of them to be precise -- are filled with new books and flash cards about insects, farm animals and state capitols.



And the boy who crept into my room early this morning to ask me to be his Valentine was a snuggley tousle-topped 3 1/2-year-old. My heart melts.

As for my original valentine? The one who asked me to be his for the first time 14 years ago today? I'm glad he's patient and understanding.



Between my sinus headache, getting the flat tire fixed, coordinating the class party and hosting an afternoon play date, there may not be time to produce a final draft of my valentine for him. It's sad really--his place in the line-up--but I don't think he minds.

After all, he'll be too busy rolling seaweed around balls of rice, and counting the blessings that have come from our aging romance--there are three of them to be precise.