A Valentine's Day with Lots of Love

Valentine's Day started pretty early today ... especially after such a busy day yesterday.

Owen was up first. Lately Owen has been very good about telling people how much he loves them. He's always been very sensitive to emotions and I think he's picked up his queue that some extra TLC is good these days. When he got up, I greeted him on the landing upstairs and gave him a huge hug. He then got dressed and joined his mom downstairs.

We had laid out some Valentine's Day surprises on the kids' place settings around their breakfasts. Owen quickly saw it. "Well," he said coyly, "this looks like something special over here."

Maya was up a bit later. Full of beans, she came down in her PJs (an improvement from the streaking she's done to the kitchen the past two days).

Even through the crazy hair, you can tell she thought it all looked pretty good.

School was fun for them today with Valentine card exchanges in each class, plus a V-Day party in Owen's. It was the first I'd missed as a Room Parent this year, but I had so much to catch up on from all the shows and days I've taken off to go to Oswego these past three weeks.

Speaking of, Amy and I made a trip up yesterday. It was her first face-to-face with my mom in two weeks, and it was a very good day. Grammie and Grampy took the kids for the day so we could share the time with them.

Nana looks much different than she did the last time. Words don't come at all and she's very sleepy. Leg cramps have also been a problem. But she occasionally got that wry sparkle in her eye, like she understood the ridiculousness of her situation.

At least I think she'd see it that way.

She's been taking morphine for the pain, which led to a very interesting lunch where cat naps interrupted her chewing. We'd wake her, "catching her" in the act ... and she'd just smile.

"Can you believe it?" her eyes seemed to say, "I was sleeping with food in my mouth!"

There were many wonderful moments. We got to hold hands for a long time, which I'll always remember, and we gave her crampy leg a good massage to get the knots out.

Amy shared some terrific time with her, too. Mom took so easily to having her head rubbed. Her hair is still unbelievably soft and thick as it always was, and her tired eyes melted as the fingers raced across her scalp. And she seemed to respond very easily to Amy's very natural bedside manor. Mom was, and is, very proud of her boys ... but she always wanted a daughter and seemed to latch on to our wives as her chance to enjoy that missing relationship. It was very sweet to see her so comfortable in Amy's care.



After a few hours, we headed home. It was tough leaving and my stomach was churning for the first half hour. The problem was solved by the sight of the red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror. A state trooper pulled us over just as we were entering traffic on I-80. I knew I was feeling emotional, but I couldn't imagine anything I could have done wrong. I pulled my license out as he walked up, but he walked right past my window, looked at my front license plate and said "Sorry, wrong car," as he walked back. He'd entered my license plate wrong and it brought up another silver Toyota Camry whose license had expired in January 2010.

At least it was a good distraction ...

We got back to the Ives' in time to join them for dinner. The kids had had a wonderful day (thank you Grammie and Grampy!) and were a hoot over dinner.

It was a wonder to see them both. For all of the emotion Nana's situation evokes, the best thing I seem to be able to do for myself is wrap myself into the joys of my own parenting. They're wonderful kids and I love them both ...

... especially on Valentine's Day.