Valentine's Revisited

As I sit here in the couch with my 5.5 year old, I am reminded of when my daughter was this age.  On Valentine's Day that year, she was officially 5 months old.  We decided we would go out as a family and celebrate.  We made our reservations and got dressed up and out we went.  Keep in mind we were living in a small Oklahoma town at this point.

As happens with many Valentine's plans, things didn't go as expected.  After an hour and a half delay in our reservations, we finally got our food around 10 o'clock that night.  The wee one had done well the entire time but as you can imagine, she was a little put out by this point.  I was holding her trying to get her to calm down enough so I could eat my very awaited meal when an older, grandmotherly woman came over and literally swept her out of my arms.  This lady was nice and bounced the wee one a couple of times and then...

...WALKED OFF WITH MY CHILD!

Yes, she literally walked right out of the room and we couldn't see her.  As Brent sprinted after her, I had visions of this woman running down the road with my child taking her God knows where.  Brent found her in the other room just bouncing the wee one.  She was very calm and nice and just said she wanted to give us time to eat a quiet meal.  Apparently, she was the owner's mother and she was just exhibiting some old-school, small-town kindness; however...WHAT THE HELL?!?!

Looking back, I am able to laugh a little.  That night my heart raced.  Between that experience and one a few years back where we spent more time in traffic than we did at dinner, we've since decided that Valentine's Day is best celebrated on an alternate day if we are planning to "go out".  Otherwise, we'll just chill at the house and enjoy our family's love.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I hope you know how loved you are and are able to share that love with another.