Daily Archives: February 14, 2007

Worst Valentine’s Day EVER by Maureen Child

I was pregnant.

VERY pregnant. My second baby was due on Valentine’s day and my three year old son was making me crazy and my husband didn’t seem to understand what the big deal was.

I was tired, cranky, roughly the size of Mt. Rushmore and not feeling the love.

Naturally, the TV was playing all these fabulous commercials with skinny women getting candy and diamonds from amazingly gorgeous men and there I sat. Waiting on a baby who had no intention of showing up and trying not to shriek as my son’s bottle of glue spilled on the floor. Of course, a heartbeat later the dog “cleaned” it for me, then threw it right back up again.

When my husband called from work and asked, “What’s for dinner?” I lost it.

Crying, shouting, giving into all of the weird hormone surges within, I had a mini-breakdown. Even my son and the dog paused in their destruction derby to watch the festivities. By the time I hung up, I was spent. All I wanted to do was find a hole and crawl in for awhile. This was not how I pictured Valentine’s Day. There should be romance. Dancing. Dining.

I put my son down for a nap, tossed the dog outside and whimpered alone on the couch. My little pity party was just getting into full swing when my husband showed up, an hour early.

He had take out bags from my favorite restaurant, a big box of Sees Bordeaux, (clearly having not noticed my elephantine size), and a wary smile on his face. He walked into the living room like a man about to tiptoe across a minefield and who could blame him?

And while I sat and relaxed with a cup of tea he made for me, my husband bathed our son, fed the dog, cleaned the living room and then set up dinner. At my place at the table, there was a gaudy Valentine’s card, lovingly decorated by my son with clumpy blobs of glued on glitter—explaining the glue incident from earlier—and another, smaller card from the yet to be born baby, apologizing for being late.

My husband served the take-out dinner, cleaned up afterward and tucked our son into bed, insisting that I do nothing more than relax and watch TV. So I did. And when those commercials with perfect people doing imitations of romance came on, I paid no attention at all.

Real romance comes when you need it most. And even the worst Valentine’s day can turn out to be the best.

And when our daughter finally arrived four days later, she was worth the wait.

Maureen Child
http://www.maureenchild.com
NEVERMORE, Silhouette Nocturne, Feb. ’07
THIRTY DAY AFFAIR, Silhouette Desire, March, ’07