At dinner on our 17th wedding anniversary, my wife handed me a card and laughed.
It was very sweet on the outside, and on the inside, it read: Happy Valentine’s Day.
Our anniversary is in December.
I smiled. It was the perfect card for us, two working parents with three kids and three dogs and a house that had just emptied of six additional people for Thanksgiving.
How did my wife of 17 years come to give me a Valentine’s Day card that made my day?
It’s a story a lot of dual working parents might relate to.
It began Thanksgiving week.
All three of our girls had the whole week off. Their schools did this so that they could schedule parent-teacher conferences on the Monday and Tuesday.
Makes sense, except my wife and I both had work to do around those conferences. We needed help with some childcare.
So my wife, through her network of working moms, found someone’s nanny who was free during the day. She came over on Monday and Tuesday and was great with our girls.
Obviously, she didn’t know anything about our household system, but we didn’t think too much about it. She played with our daughters and helped them clean up after themselves. When she didn’t know where something went, she put it in the brown bowl on the counter.
Then came the rush of Thanksgiving where our house was super tidy before our guests arrived.
Like any house that hosts Thanksgiving, it then became messier than it ever is any other day of the year – piles of pans, pots, dishes, glasses and cutlery that come from a day well spent eating with family.
By Sunday, our anniversary, my wife reached for the original card she bought me – one she swears had Happy Anniversary written across the front – only to find it missing along with a bunch of other small things we all thought were in … the brown bowl!
So my wife went out to get a replacment card, while I finished decorating the tree with our kids. (For the record, I’m a handwritten-note husband.)
And that brought us to dinner where I opened my Happy Valentine’s Day Anniversary Card. Why was this such a great card to get?
Because it opened a conversation on how we’ve adapted as people and parents since we first met over 20 years ago.
There was a time when I would have been miffed to get a Valentine’s Day card not in February. And there was a time when she might have forgotten the card all together.
But on this anniversary, I was just so happy we were out alone. Being a working parent, even when you have resources to hire some help, is hard, as so many of us know. It’s a constant juggle. Getting time alone as a couple, particularly in a year when your anniversary is right after Thanksgiving, is super hard. Let’s start by being awake enough to go out!
What isn’t hard is to find the positive in a silly situation – and to enjoy the two hours of uninterrupted time together.
Working parenthood isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being present.
