Seeing Valentine's Through Young, Unjaded Eyes

I left for Target at 7:43 a.m. because my youngest child, William, the KING of the ‘forgotten assignment suddenly remembered 10 minutes before the bus comes’ informed me at 7:23 am that he needed Valentine’s (and candy) for school that day. When he insisting on tagging along, at first I said no, but the boy persisted. My will is weak at that hour of the ’morn… so off we went.

When we waited by the front door of Target – me in my dog-hair covered ‘yoga’ pants and the two women next to us wearing sexy “Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife”-ish pantsuits and high heel boots – a thought occurred to me. No, not “Maybe I should have brushed my teeth” although that would have been nice. It was, “Gee…I remember William telling me about a girl he likes in his class.” Actually, it went a little something like this…(cue Garth and Wayne waving their fingers in the air to segue into a flashback sequence):

One day, I was down in the mancave bedroom putting clothes away when William was kind of lingering about in the background. I asked him if he wanted to help, but I don’t think he heard me. Instead, he said, “Hey mom.”

I answered, “Yes my dear boy.” (or maybe it was “WHAT??”).

He continued, _"If I had a girlfriend, would you want to know?"

Ok, for context, I will interject here that William is my baby. The youngest of four. He’s 11-years-old. So far, in my parenting career, I have had the subject of boyfriend/girlfriends come up exactly ZERO times.

This was new territory for me so I decided to tread lightly. Or as lightly as I can. “Oh William!! YES! For sure I’d want to know!! WHO? Who is it?”

I finally got it out of him and then spent the next few minutes picturing them in their 20’s, getting married and giving me tall, skinny grandchildren. Then I snapped out of it and finished putting away the laundry.

(and now Wayne and Garth are doing it again, segueing back into present-day)

So as we’re booking it towards the Valentine’s Day section of Target, I casually mentioned to my son, “Maybe you want to get a little something special for XXXX?” (her name isn’t really XXXX but I do have to show some restraint here).

He turned crimson and said, “Duh mom. That’s why I wanted to come with you.”

Can a woman with fuzzy teeth, wearing black pants that look light yellow due to the volume of dog hair matted on them, race-walking down the main aisle of Target actually feel her heart melting?

Yes. Yes she can.

And it melted some more as I watched my baby, my sweet William, trying his 11-year-old-hardest to pick out the perfect gift for his girlfriend. I may, or may not have weeped a little when he picked out a Dove long-stemmed chocolate rose. And then maybe again, sighing a little bit of relief, when he put the rose back and picked out a little teddy bear wearing a heart sweater instead (no need to get too serious, ya know).

So we grabbed the couple of bags of candy, the teddy bear and a special little card just for XXXX, checked out and went home.

William got to work on the math sheet he had totally forgotten about, I wrapped the teddy bear in pink tissue and put it in a very non-Valentine’s Day looking bag, and deposited both that, and the bags of candy into his backpack.

And now, I sit here, still aglow over what transpired this morning.

Valentine’s Day can suck. It can suck not only for singles like me, but I know from experience it can suck even when you’ve got a ring on your finger and a non-expired marriage certificate.

But… it can also be very sweet.

I’d be a big fat liar if I said that having a significant other wouldn’t be kind of nice on this day, that making reservations for an intimate dinner wouldn’t be exciting, or that picking out some Valentine’s lingerie (or at least something that doesn’t look like prison-issued underwear) wouldn’t get the old romance coals all glowy.

Yes, as nice as that stuff would be, it’s still ok to be FINE being alone. It’s still ok to NOT GIVE A HOOT about being single on Valentine’s Day.

But today, my son gave me a little glimpse into Valentine’s Day, as seen through fresh eyes.

I saw, for a minute, how Valentine’s Day looks when seen for the first time by someone who is just beginning to tread the waters in The Sea of Love; for someone just starting to notice those little butterflies, that “funny feeling” you get when someone you like walks into the room.

And it made me forget about broken hearts, broken promises, and spending the two weeks leading up to this day grimacing over Hallmark and Kay Jewelers commercials…it made me forget my singleness.

It made me love this day. And that made my day complete by 8:00 a.m.

Thank you William.

Jennifer Ball writes about divorce and its aftermath, parenting teens and what it’s like to have Michelle Duggar hair on her blog, The Happy Hausfrau. When she’s not binge-watching t.v. series on Netflix she can be found teaching preschoolers how to build awesome block forts. She lives in Minneapolis with her four fantastic children and Walter, the best dog in the world. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter!