Posted On July 3rd, 2014
Valentine’s Day is coming up. It’s not really a big holiday in our house. No hearts and chocolates around here. My husband and I are in this phase where we don’t do lavish gifts for each other and don’t really do dates. Don’t feel sorry for us. We know we love each other and we are not sad about it, nor do we feel unloved or unappreciated.
We both work full time and we have a toddler. When we get home, we are 100% on with the boy…. He gets all our time, attention, and affection. We do a little bit of tag-teaming for those important things that need to be done, like cooking and going to the bathroom, but that’s about it. The ‘rest of life’ comes about 9pm, when he’s settled in for the night. That’s when we exercise, clean, catch up on emails, the DVR, and well, you get the point. We know this phase won’t last forever. It was a long, difficult road (filled with IVF and eventually adoption) to become parents. We want to enjoy every moment of it.
Though we are together every evening and weekend as a family, we’ve kind of forgotten to communicate as a couple. Our acts of love are typically the gift of solitude. “Go take a bath. I’ll occupy the boy” or “I’ll put the boy to bed tonight. Go for your run”. (We really do refer to him as ‘the boy’. We do it to amuse ourselves.)
Though I openly admit we take complete advantage of one another, we still know that every once in a while, we need a moment to reconnect and tell each other how we feel. That way, the next time my husband calls me on the way to work and tells me “you know you kissed your son goodbye and told him you loved him before you left and didn’t even acknowledge the person holding him” we can still laugh about it. (We did have a good laugh over that one).
I am planning to make my husband a Countdown to Valentine’s Day. I want to sneak it into his office. (well never mind. I just blew my own cover. He’s going to read this post before anyone else will.) I want to take the time to create a personalized daily countdown, and each day, tell him something I love about him. Wow. As I sit here and type, I realize that there are just not enough days until Valentine’s Day. There are just so many reasons I love him.
Lucky me!
Amy