A Much Better Valentine

Before I met Mike, I didn’t think much about Valentine’s Day. I didn’t hate or love it, I was just pretty indifferent. I didn’t used to be a very sentimental or sappy person. I mean, I thought love was great and all but I didn’t really get all of the ooey gooey stuff.

Then I met Mike about 2 weeks before Valentine’s Day and I felt a little different about the day that I once viewed as a Hallmark Campaign To Make Money. Every year, since we met, my sweet husband has given me a beautiful card in which he writes a very sincere and tear inducing message to me. This year, I got in my car this morning to find my card sitting on my driver’s seat. It was an incredible way to start my day.

The funniest thing about that is that Mike and I are probably the cheapest people on the planet. I mean, we just don’t spend money on things. Well, you know, we buy what we need but we are really pretty frugal. But each year, we trek to the store to buy each other pieces of paper covered in bows and hearts that have sweet poems or messages for the bargain price of $6.99 even though I routinely drive out of my way in this city to about a $.50 toll road. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love getting that card each year. I love waking up to “my valentine” and getting to come home to him. Mike changed the way I thought of Valentine’s Day and, really, Love entirely.

Then, we had Olivia. I never knew holidays, even the lovey dovey ones like Valentine’s Day, could be so much FUN with a kid! Mike and I have a blast planning out little gifts for her or thinking of little surprises. On Monday night, Mike was so sweet and asked “Should I go to the store to get Oli a Valentine present?” He’s a great dad and my heart was full hearing him ask about getting his sweet girl a Valentine.

When The Boss Lady woke up this morning, we had a basket of goodies waiting for her. One of those things was this dancing pig that reminded me so much of her when I saw it. It dances around and sings and reminds me of Oli when she’s dancing around the kitchen or living room for us. I happily stayed up late each week to make goody bags for her class and get her cards ready for school. I was so excited about her party at school that you might have thought I was the one have a Valentine’s party! Seriously, it’s really FUN celebrating with a kiddo.

This year though, as I am sure I’ll do every single year until I’m dead, throughout the day I was reminded of the horror that was Olivia’s very first Valentine’s Day.

If you haven’t been a reader for very long, feel free to check out that awful day at Humpty Dumpty's Valentine's Day Adventure.Here’s a recap though: On Olivia’s first Valentine’s Day (she was just nearly 6 months old), she and I had come home and I had put her in her Bumbo on the kitchen island—like we ALWAYS did. I was writing a message to Mike in his Valentine’s card when Olivia lunged forward (or something, I’m still not really sure) and went flying out of the Bumbo and landed on the floor. It was awful beyond what I can describe. Even just thinking about it today, I felt a little sick.

I remember seeing just a flash and then actually hearing her hit the floor. I remember running (all of 7 steps) to her and seeing her lying face down on the kitchen tile and screaming her head off. I remember picking her up and my mind and heart and adrenaline racing and thinking that if something was wrong with her, my life would be over. I remember thinking how I absolutely could NOT live without her if something happened to her or how devastated I would be if that accident somehow ruined her life. I remember thinking and feeling and seeing all of those things in a matter of about 2.5 seconds. My life was suddenly in slow motion at the sight of my child hurt.

Mike arrived home just as the ambulance was arriving and they recommended we take her to the childrens’ ER. About 6 hours later we found out she had a skull fracture but that she would be just fine. And then they sent us home. Yep, they sent us home with a kid with a broken skull with instructions to give her children’s ibuprofen as needed and to have a nice life. Oh, and to keep the Bumbo off of the kitchen counter. The sense of relief I felt when we found out she was going to be okay was truly overwhelming.

I had no idea I was capable of that kind of emotion, that kind of heart stopping fear or action inducing adrenaline. I had no idea that one tiny person who I had known for less than 6 months who had spent most of that time depriving me of sleep, dousing me in her bodily fluids, and screaming at me for her every need could make me feel so much LOVE.

I knew in that moment that if something happened to her, I would die inside. My soul would be hurt in a way that would be irreparable.

Mike is and always will be the most important human to me but Mike and I are realists. We know that someday one of us IS going to have to live without the other. Of course, we don’t want it to happen and we’d like for that day to be a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time from now but the reality is that it will happen. I don't like to even *think* of having to live without Mike which is why we've agreed I can die first. Morbid, yes, but I don't want to live without the man. 

And neither of us is or will ever be prepared to live in a world where there is no Boss Lady. Period.

One of the most magical things about parenthood is the ability to love someone you just met SO FREAKING MUCH. It is a truly unconditional love and I am convinced this is God’s way of giving us a small glimpse into the way He loves us. I love that mine and Mike’s unconditional love for Olivia was born from our unconditional love for each other. And our love of each other was born from the unconditional love of our God. I LOVE the love in my little family. I love that we support each other and lift each other up. I love that even just short of 6 months of knowing her, my sweet girl had taught me how fierce, how unexpected, how incredible love of another can be. I love that even though those first months with her were trying, she showed me how unconditional love could really be.

Truthfully, I did not love the baby phase. I love certain things about it, but it was a butt whippin’. I was tired and my body hurt from having carried a baby for 9 months and having been cut open courtesy of a c-section. I was tired in a way I never had been and for the first time in my life, I could not control a situation to make it go the way I wanted. There were moments in the beginning that I thought, “I thought having kids was supposed to make your life better…” And despite all of the challenges, when Olivia fell, my heart stopped with the knowledge that if ANYTHING bad happened to her, I would die inside. Since the day I knew this kid existed, her name has been embedded in my heart. Even now, as she sits here beside me trying to press buttons on the keyboard, I am struck by the complete way that I love her.

Our third Valentine’s Day evening with Lady Loco went quite a bit better than that first. After dinner, we celebrated with a special treat: chocolate dipped strawberries. We all stood at the kitchen counter around a pot of melted chocolate and dipped and ate strawberries together. It was so sweet to see Olivia getting into it, dipping each strawberry with care and telling us which ones were hers and which were ours.  It was just a nice night together as a family full of chocolate and strawberries and unconditional love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!