Love "Affinity"

Yesterday, as you may have observed, was Valentine's Day, one day removed from a lesser known if slightly warmer holiday--the Ides of February--which I am celebrating today by contributing to our family blog--a rarity I know.

Yesterday turned out to be a very special Valentine's for the Sullivans, as we all really wanted to make a mark on the day.  In preparation, everyone came up with their own treasure hunt for the other members of the family, complete with written clues that lead you incrementally closer to the treasure.  In Sophie and Hallee's cases these were hand wrapped toys from their own collection.  How many of you have ever been given a draft horse for Valentines?  Hallee gave me this one.  Hope I can keep it in the back yard (smile).

Earless draft horse?--everyone should have one

I got Helen a new olive oil decanter.  No, serious it's really cool!  Okay, it's just a plain old bottle with rubber stopper and metal spout, but I knew it would be useful for our family because we do use a lot of olive oil and it was made in Italy which I thought was appropriate.  I did get some chocolate to go along with this too.   And I came up with a pretty cool treasure hunt.  One of the hints involved John Denver lyrics and everything.  Ask me sometime how to tie "country roads" and "misty taste of moonshine" into a treasure hunt. I've got great tips.

Then came our valentines from Helen.  She decided to just guide us to the hidden treasure by means of "warmer, colder, warm again, even warmer!" as we wandered around the house finding our direction from her verbal hints.  The first valentine from Helen was a GIANT bag of Australian black licorice and individual boxes of heart candies.  This was wrapped with in red paper with this note:

infinity = "affinity" = forever-always

I read it to the kids then showed them that it was signed "Love [infinity symbol], Helen".   They all started chiming in:  "I love you 'affinity'!"  Which was cute and special--these kids won't be needing me to read notes to them very much longer and the funny little things that they say will be left behind like Spiderman clothes or old dolls for more grown-up mature ways of saying things.  I guess you grab a hold of these moments because you know they are gone as fast as they happen.  I was all smiles and Helen and I were laughing a little.  "I love you affinity!" "NO. I love YOU affinity."

Well it was pretty well another Valentine's in the books, or so I thought as I put down my super economy feed-store-sized bag of licorice on the table and prepared to go start making breakfast, but Helen had one more trick up her sleeve.  "I have one more surprise," she announced, so we all went on another "warmer/colder" hunt, which ended in Zeke's room.  A small  wrapped gift complete with ribbons was discovered and Helen instructed us to all take part in the unwrapping, so I took off the steel-belted ribbons that the kids were having a hard time getting past and then the kids shredded the wrapping paper like so many piranhas, leaving a little black jewelry box.   I opened it to find a folded note inside.  Helen had all the kids sit down with her on Zeke's bed "so daddy can read the note to us."  By the time I read the word "miracle" in second sentence, my mind was racing, trying to scroll through every possible "giant-surprise- amazing-miracle" I could.  A new stove?  A new car?  I felt that "amazing-miracle" was probably a little strong for either of these.  What was she talking about?  My eyes scanning ahead in the text now for clues--then I saw it the word "baby."

the paper wave 

(notice the small blue bead taped to the note to illustrate to the children the size of the fetus)

Have you ever been to the beach and been blasted by a big wave while playing in the surf?  You stand up afterward all disoriented with wet sand dripping out of your ears having been drug and tumbled toward shore.  If you've ever been really blindsided by a big wave you might have an idea of the size of the one that hit me yesterday morning.  At that moment I lost track of everything in the room but had the presence of mind to keep reading so the kids could get the news too.   I tried to look at them, all sitting there on Zeke's bed, but couldn't make much out through the tears in my eyes.  

Happy Ides of February everyone!   The Sullivan's are fix'n to have annotha!

Casey Bert