Ramblings

So I finally take the time to write - and find I have nothing to write about. Oh, of course there's always something like my mom's recent surgery, or the constant cold/cough that is going around our house, or the constant nagging fear I have over the health of this baby boy I'm carrying - but I don't want to focus on that.

A is being a precocious four year old - she's so excited for Valentine's Day that she can't stand herself. She has a party at school tomorrow - so she and I spent all of last Sunday making sweetheart cookies for it - cut heart sugar cookies - iced pink and white. She did her usual "job" of sprinkling them in her artistic A manner. Then, for the final touch - we (or rather I) piped the name of each child in her class on a larger heart cookie - so they'll have their own special treat. A was thrilled.

J of course has no concept of the approaching holiday - but he is definately interested in the big container of cookies waiting on the counter (some are set aside for his class party) - and keeps pointing to the heart decorations we put around the kitchen.

My mom always made every holiday special. Even the little ones, like St. Patricks Day and Valentine's Day. She always cooked something special - and we set the table in the formal dining room with the fine china and crystal (yep, even when we were little) - and we sat together like real grown-ups. She'd have some sort of trinket or gift waiting for us at our places - a small box of chocolates, or a shamrock pin, or something of that sort.

I'm continuing the tradition for our kids. Rather than pawn them off on a babysitter on Valentine's Day, D and I have opted to share it with them. I plan to have A help me make cupcakes on Saturday (decorated, A says - of course - with conversation heart candies) and then we'll cook a special meal, set the "fancy" table, and eat together as a family. And there will be treats - a new DVD for each of the kids, a new set of jammies for each of the kids, and plenty of chocolate candy. I know - it's not their birthday and it's not Christmas - but it somehow makes me feel closer to my mom to pick out little things and wrap them in pretty paper.

Isn't it funny how a holiday that used to be so "romantic" between D and I is now filled with paper-chain hearts, homemade cupcakes, and kid jammies?

But I wouldn't have it any other way.