We had a lovely Valentines Day yesterday – despite having several coughing, fevery kids.  We kicked the day off with pink, heart pancakes and wrapped it up with a fancy, candlelight pizza dinner.  We held our annual Lotsa Love Celebration and forced our kids to watch us dance to our wedding song and listen to stories about how we met and fell in love.  It was about as much gushy, lovey-dovey stuff as any four kids could handle.

According to family tradition, my kids woke to a small Valentine’s surprise from Mom and Dad.  This year, much to our surprise, my husband and I woke up to a few gifts as well.  My oldest daughter (age 10) gave us a “You Are Jar”.  She found a canning jar in the kitchen and filled it with little slips of paper to remind us of all the things we are to her…handsome, fun, giving, supercalifragilisticexpealadocious…you get the idea.  My younger daughter (age 7) delivered a hand-crafted aluminum foil bowl carefully wrapped in toilet paper and countless yards of scotch tape.  My 8 year-old son created his own version of a loving Valentine card by thoughtfully warning us of an impending alien invasion – complete with detailed illustrations and a request to ‘send help!’.

They didn’t create these little tokens at school or church.  No teacher lectured them on showing love to your parents and handed them supplies.  They just spontaneously (and independently of each other) wanted to show us how much they cared.  Yesterday I just laughed at the little gifts but as I sat at my desk today and looked at the presents it hit me…maybe all those lessons on showing love to our family are actually sinking in.  Maybe they really have been listening.  What better Valentine’s gifts can a Mom ask for?

I know this is a bit of a departure from my regular type of post, but I want to record these mothering lightbulb moments too; mostly so I can refer back to them on rough days when my house is filled with something other than Lotsa Love.  I hope your Valentine’s Day was filled with a few little lightbulb moments too.  Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.  Just thought I’d pass it on.