Valentine's Daydreams

My husband has never bought me flowers or chocolates for Valentine's Day.

Anybody who knows me is well aware that I am an incurable romantic, filled with all the typical preconceived notions of how holidays as potentially luscious as these should go. I have scripts in my head that put Shakespeare to shame, romantic dinners plotted from soup to fondue, years of daydreams logged. Many of these daydreams once involved blood-red roses and a hefty box of nuts and nougats. But trips to the local florist and See's Candies don't even enter my husband's consciousness. I have had to let those dreams go. Instead, I have been forced to wrap my heart around the gifts I do receive. Here is a glimpse of what I get instead:

My husband wakes up with the kids every other morning, without fail. He often decides it doesn't matter whether or not it is "his day" to sleep in. Without a word he is pulling his robe on to answer the baby's waking cries... and I am free to snuggle back into the deep covers and catch another hour.

My husband pulls me up to dance, and suddenly I am whisked away to the Catskills, my name is Baby, and nobody's putting me in a corner. He takes total command of me with ease and grace. He isn't a trained dancer, but when I'm on the dance floor with him I would swear he was the master instructor from Arthur Murray. The world falls away in a blur, I am spinning and completely surrendering my body to his movement, his steps, his rhythm. He carries me away, and I scarcely remember returning to earth.

My husband writes poetry. He fills the most elegant cards with words and images that make the angels weep. I have piles of these poems, I have kept every one; over the years, he has described his singular devotion to me in a thousand different ways.

My husband calls me "My Dear". He calls me "Honey". He calls me "Mrs. C".

My husband lets me put my freezing cold feet in between his legs every night. He never compains.

My husband can fix anything. He can unclog a drain, open a jar of pickles, paint a room, mow-and-blow a lawn, build a closet, sew a button, core an apple, sharpen a knife, fix my glasses, find my keys, polish my shoes, sump-pump a flooded driveway, and stencil a glow-in-the-dark milky way on our son's ceiling. I challenge anyone to hand him a household problem he doesn't know how to remedy.

My husband cooks for me. He knows how to look in our fridge and pantry and throw random ingredents together to make a savory feast. My husband awakened my passion for food. He encouraged me to taste- and savor- more of life than I ever was willing to before I met him.

My husband is my best friend. We commiserate, we debate, we laugh, we daydream, we cry (well, okay, mostly I cry). We share sodas and cake. We look at menus and decide what two meals we're going to share. He reads me politics. I read him the advice columns. In the safety of our cozy companionship, we are free to gloat and to cower, to brag shamelessly and to admit our deepest sadness.

In a world where I hear too often all the ways a spouse "brings his partner back to reality", my husband unfailingly thinks I can do whatever I set my mind and heart to. No matter what the job or task, he thinks I am the woman for it. Doesn't matter if it's teaching, choreographing, performing a role that's completely out of my range, writing for Oprah magazine, or joining Cirque Du Soleil. "You'd be great at that", he says.

My husband has never tried to change a thing about me. If anything "bugs" him, he has never let on. Imagine that.

My husband stared at me while I was pregnant like I was the most amazing human on the planet. It didn't matter that billions of women had successfully done this pregnancy thing before me. To him, I was the only one who could ever pull it off.


My husband gave me the gift of our two precious little boys. He held my hand as each of them came into the world. My husband has been to hell and back with me. We've navigated the trials of parenthood, the short tempers, the sleeplessness. We've argued, we've listened, we've grown, we've clung to each other through the worst of it and reveled together in the best of it.

My husband often wanders into the bedroom while I am putting on makeup. He turns to our son and says, "There she goes, gilding the lily again. It's just unfair to all the other women of the world, Addie. Because you see, the moment your mom walks in the room, nobody else exists." I stare at my reflection- at my nose that's always been just a little too big for my face, at the early stage of crow's feet around my eyes, at my often disheveled hair... and I smile because I am beautiful in my husband's eyes and that is all that matters.

My husband makes me want to be this extraordinary woman he sees.

My husband has never bought me flowers or chocolates for Valentine's Day. It's not his style.

Yes, I have had to let that dream go. There was a much bigger dream awaiting me; my husband wakes up each morning intent on giving me his very heart. And because of this, as the song goes...

"... each day is Valentine's Day."

Remembering ONE

I cannot believe you are a whole year old, Mr. T! Where did the time go?! The first year of Addie's life (and our new life as parents) was a bit of a haze much of the time, marked by long, drawn-out hours of no sleep, paralyzing fatigue, emotions high and low, adjustment to the new normal. But that change- the overwhelming transition into Life With Kids that had me reeling- happened long ago, and now, amazingly, it is simply who I am and what I do. Thus, I spent the first year of your life relaxed and embracing every moment, hyper-aware of every precious memory we were creating with you, relishing every one of your passing fancies. I was able to feel the whole experience from a more centered place, free to drink it in and savor every drop. Maybe part of the reason I held each moment so dear is because I'm pretty doggone sure you will be our last baby... a thought that fills me with sadness for so many reasons. But whatever the cause for my revery, it all flew by in a flash.

I look at you, and can hardly fathom that you were that little peanut inside me when I had my bleeding scare at nine weeks, and Stan rushed me to the hospital in tears. After hours spent waiting and worrying, the nurse finally came in to look and listen, to see if you were still with us. That was YOU, Tucker... you on the ultrasound, that tiny, foggy clump with the super-strong heartbeat that seemed to shout, "YES YES, I am still here!" That was you seven months later on February 1st, 2009, pressing relentlessly on my cervix, scoffing at epidurals one and two, making your presence known as I begged for mercy and the anesthesiologist panicked at my off-the-chart pain levels. And then when I was finally allowed to push, that was you at the ready, popping out effortlesly in a minute and a half... a Chandler record (Addie took three minutes). As soon as the door was open, you plowed right through. You're still doing that, to this day.

You are very different from how I remember Addie at your age. He seemed more adult somehow, what people like to call "an old soul". You, in contrast, are a bundle of exuberant, youthful energy. Addie was already speaking words, calmly calling out for me from the crib each morning, already verbalizing his needs with one-or two-word announcements. You are more demonstrative, full of noise and babble, but aren't in any hurry to make words yet (though I admit you've said "Mama" in passing, you've started saying "Ada" for Addie, and today I could have sworn you reached out and said "apple").

Here are some of the glorious things I don't want to forget about you at age one:

You motor-crawl around the house at lightning speed, evoking the image of a wind-up toy on overdrive. You are usually headed for your favorite play areas: the refrigerator, where you love to hang out and remove all the salad dressings from the door, the pantry where you remove all the pasta boxes, my desk drawers where you remove all the envelopes, and the toilet, where if we're lucky there is nothing at all for you to remove.

You love the shower, absolutely adore it. I take you in there with me most nights, and sing songs to you (how about that? The most singing I do these days is in the shower! I must say, the venue has its perks; so far, no critics). You have no trouble at all getting soaked, face and all (note to new parents: dump buckets of water on your baby's head daily! I avoided this with Addie, and he still hates water in his eyes to this day), and there is nothing more amazing to me than staring at your sweet baby-face when it is soaking wet, your big blue eyes blinking up at me under glistening wet, long, dark eyelashes. Sometimes you put your soapy head on my shoulder while I sing. Heaven on Earth.

When you are falling asleep in my arms, you put your hand on your head and twirl your hair... then you reach up and twirl mine. I look forward to this at every nap and every single night before bedtime. I already know I will ache for this when you stop.

You are a chowhound. There is nothing you won't eat... including some rather unsavory items like dirt, rocks, and tissue paper. Your favorite foods include cantaloupe, baked potato with sour cream, chicken breast, halibut, grapes, yogurt, peas- and today, for the first time, you wolfed down your first peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

You have six teeth- two on the bottom, four on top. They look like mini-Chiclets.

Not long ago, you turned yellow from a little condition called carotenemia. Apparently, some babies react to having too many yellow or orange vegetables, so for a while it was sayonara, sweet potatoes. Lately we've been plying you with peas, string beans, spinach, zucchini and broccoli (lucky for you babies don't turn green). You're less yellow now, but I kind of miss it; everybody thought you had been to the Bahamas.

You're sleeping through the night- finally! It took a full year, but we've strung together two solid weeks of eleven-hour stretches. Hallelujah!

You adore Addie. And he absolutely adores you. My sister-in-law Sharon once told me that one of the best things about having two children is seeing how they love each other. She was right. Watching Addie wrap his [amazingly careful, gentle] arms around his baby brother fills me with a joy I could never have imagined before.

You flat-out REFUSE to lie still for a diaper change. I have never encountered such a struggle. You flip, you fuss, you will not be restrained. Things can get awfully messy if there's poop involved.

You love people, and are easily held by others... but you always look to me first for "friend approval". Someone will approach you, and you'll smile tentatively, look right at me with inquisitive eyes that wonder, Is this person OK? Yes, I'll nod. I approve this friend request. Your whole body instantly relaxes and you're free to have fun.

You're needier than Addie was. More physical. More stubborn- and that's saying something. I've got two very strong-willed kids. I am glad.

You give the best hugs. Your face melts me. Your animated eyebrows make me laugh. You can lift one up so high, it looks like someone snagged it with a fishhook.

Though your spirit is young, you have a light in your eyes that is impossibly bright. You draw people in; they turn their faces to you like the sun, and you happily shine your light on all of them. How lucky I am to be bathed in that light every day! You are a miraculous little soul, Mr. T... and I am so honored to know you.

Happy First Birthday, Tuckerman. What an adventure this life with you will be.