Valentine's Day

I am composing a post about the kids' 14-month update.

Meanwhile, it is Valentine's day. Milo & Nora turned 14 months on the 14th! Is that some kind of golden monthiversary or something?

I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day as an adult. All of the restaurants are packed and what fun is it to go out on a night when everything is crowded and rushed? We have historically enjoyed making a nice dinner at home, but that's something we do regularly and doesn't require a special holiday. I also prefer not to exchange gifts because, I don't know, it just seems made up and silly. I don't really need anything, and neither of us has time to search for gifts for the other, so it seems easier and more relaxing to skip that whole thing. I like not having to deal with Valentine's Day. I typically enjoy Feb. 15, aka half-price chocolate day, but I'm going to try to reign myself in this year.

Valentine's Day always seemed like a kid holiday to me. I remember making Valentines for the entire class and decorating a shoe box with construction paper and other stuff. Then we'd make a hole in the shoe box and it would become our Valentine's day mailbox. I remember using doilies to make fancy Valentines, drawing on construction paper, and making hearts. That stuff was so much fun. It is fun to make things when you're little, and then in school we'd get to have a little party with cupcakes and we would all go around and pass out our Valentines and put them in everybody's shoebox mailboxes. Do kids still do this? Do they still get parties with cupcakes? I hope so.

Maybe it is the element of surprise or uncertainty that lends interest to Valentine's day, which isn't there when you're married. In high school, there was a Valentine's day custom that involved sending flowers to people during second period. You could send different colored carnations and each color would represent a different message, like white for friendship, pink for "I like you", red for love, and so forth. It was fun to send and get those flowers, and to wonder endlessly over the anonymously-sent ones.

In college I got an anonymous Valentine during my freshman year from somebody, which again lent to the mystery and intrigue of the holiday. Actually it sparked this whole thing in which flowers led to anonymous letters which led to a cassette tape mix which led to notes in my mailbox about how he'd watched me at dinner but had been too shy to come up to me, so...yeah, that got a little creepy in the end I guess. But it was fun in the beginning.

Anyway, those are the things of childhood and youth, so those are the things that say Valentine's Day to me, a holiday for young people. Fortunately Jake and I are on the same page about this, so we can enjoy romantic nights out whenever we're lucky enough to get them, which is not usually on a holiday. I'll take an evening on the sofa, grading papers on my laptop with my feet tucked under Jake's legs as he reads his book -- I'll take that any day over construction paper hearts or pink carnations.

Edited to add: In a new twist, tonight we get to go out with friends for Mexican food and margaritas! Hooray! I am psyched about this turn of events.