Moms have more than one Valentine.
Our sweethearts may include our husbands, yes, but they also include our children, our children's classmates, our parents and parents-in-law and any number of family friends.
Is this a good thing?
I realized that I was buying not one Valentine card, for my beloved, but a total of eight individual cards for my family and 32 classmate cards for my two children. It occured to me that this was less about celebrating my fondness and appreciation for my long-time sweetheart and more about hurry-up-and-choose-the-cards-so-we-can-go-home-and hurry-up-and-sign-them.
There's not a lot of genuine emotion and affection in that, is there?
Yet, if I had not taken Valentine responsibility for all of these people, they would have been neglected. My kids love getting cards from mom and dad, for any occasion, and they know that Valentine's Day is one such day. It's a horror-worse-than-death mom-moment to send your children to school without the requisite classmate Valentines. How could I? Grandparents love nothing more than a Valentine signed by their six and four-year-old grandchildren. How could I deny them that joy?
So, yes, in fact, this is a good thing. Sharing love, even when it's hurried, always is.
On I will go, rapidly adding to "my" Valentine list. It seems that this is a time-honored tradition of motherhood, at least in our family, as I still get a Valentine from my own mom. (It's usually one of my favorites and is accompanied by chocolate.)
After all, can we ever really have too many loves?
