Valentime’s Day

Yes. Valentime’s Day. It’s tomorrow. Sure, I know that most people celebrate Valentine’s Day. Not in our house. Nope. It’s Valentime’s. Just ask Gertrude.

For the last few evenings, the girls were in the den working on Valentimes. Matilda’s were flowery, glittery and ornate (in the way a mobster’s moll would decorate her home with gold-leaf). Mommy’s were artistic, different and eclectic. Gertrude’s . . . well.

She’s only two, but she threw herself into Valentime’s Day with a vengeance. She made about thirty two cards for “Grampy”, nineteen for Meemee and roughly 832 random Valentimes.

Let me explain the process according to Gertrude. First you take a large piece of construction paper, preferably the ugliest color we have, such as “Warm Urine” or “Blood in the Stool”. So, you take this large piece of paper and take some glitter glue and glob it on in liberal amounts, making sure the globs will take eight hours to dry.

But you don’t have eight hours. You’re two. Bed time is in half an hour. It’s time to take your plastic scissors that can’t cut to the chase, much less a piece of construction paper.

INTERLUDE:

Gertrude’s Instructions on how to cut with Scissors
1. Pick up the scissors. They will be safety scissors because Mommy is mean and won’t let you use the real scissors. Screw danger Mom. This is ART.
2. Put your thumb and index finger in the respective scissor handles. Practice the cutting motion.
3. Pick up the piece of paper and hold it limp.
4. Now, carefully, turn the scissors sideways so that they are parallel with the paper and slide the paper in between the gap of the scissors.
5. Pump those scissors like there’s no tomorrow so they slide on the paper, causing no damage.
6. Look at paper. It has no cuts. Hmmm.
7. Get frustrated and cry. This might convince mom to give you something that is actually sharp.
8. Give up. Tear the sucker.

End INTERLUDE

Now, you have a globby, glittery piece of paper that has been shredded into many pieces, of many different shapes and sizes. Excellent.

Grab a crayon. Don’t worry about the dripping glitter glue. Start coloring on each separate piece. Smear the glue around, making sure to get it in your hair, on the table, etc.

The card is now done and is allowed to dry. Thirty seconds should be enough. Now it is time to write who it is to and sign your name. Gert, not being able to write yet, takes the Jackson Pollack route for writing. It is very ornate and beautiful.

Repeat.

This morning she was preparing to go to her sitters’ house. She was standing at the door in her little pink coat with the fuzz around the hood looking oh so cute. In her little hand was a paper bag filled with her Valentimes. She was proud of her work, as well she should be. She put my blood, Mom’s sweat and her tears into them.

My last image of her today is walking out the door clutching her bag, trying so hard to be much older than she is.

I’ll put that one in my back pocket.

When I asked her about Valentime’s day today she was very chatty. I asked her if she wanted a surprise from me. Did she want a card? No. A surprise? No. Candy? No. A present? No.

“I making Daddy a present,” she said. “It’s a surprise!” With that her thin little eyebrows shot up and her eyes got bright. Then she looked back down at her cereal with a look of concern. You could almost hear her saying, “Drat, I’ve said too much.”

Matilda went off to school with a load of Lizzie Valentines. Those were for the girls. The boys are getting Lord of the Rings. Except for me. I got a Lizzie card with a Friendship bracelet in it.

My girls. They defy all explanation.

And to my wife, this pre-Valentine’s Day message from Mr. Newman:

A window breaks, down a long, dark street
And a siren wails in the night
But I'm alright, 'cause I have you here with me
And I can almost see, through the dark there is light

Well, if you knew how much this moment means to me
And how long I've waited for your touch
And if you knew how happy you are making me
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much

It feels like home to me

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