When Tomáš realized the following day was Valentine's day, I think he said something like, ''Crap! Does that mean I have to buy flowers and chocolate?'' Well, at least the guy's honest. I'll give him that. And I kind of can't blame him. I'm not a Valentine's day hater, but it's not my favorite holiday. Maybe because I'm just not that big on flowers and boxes of chocolates (disclaimers: I have an insatiable sweet tooth and I do like chocolate and, let's be honest, will eat absolutely anything, provided I get desperate enough, but I feel a little guilty eating fancy schmancy chocolates when cheap cookies would do the trick. And as for flowers, flowers are beautiful and maybe I'm betraying my gender a little by saying so, but they're just not my favorite gift. As far as flowers go, I prefer fresh-cut lilacs or peonies from somebody's garden by far to any kind of store-bought bouquet. That's not to say I haven't enjoyed any and all bouquets I've ever received). As far as gifts go, I prefer something really thoughtful. Even if (and maybe especially so) it's the smallest thing. I know that really thoughtful is no small order, and it doesn't come easily to most people. I grew up believing that it did, because the whole of my family are the best, most thoughtful gift-givers out there and I knew nothing else, and it wasn't until I got older and started comparing notes that I learned that not everyone knows how to give good gifts. (Three such examples all from the same friend who received: a Ken doll as a 16-year-old boy, an oversized M&M coffee mug and a book entitled ''The Bloody Nez Perce Trail.'') But I digress.. Before I got married, I considered myself a very thoughtful gift-giver. Maybe that's because I had time and availability on my side. Or maybe I just had very gracious recipients. Either way, all of that seems to have gone out the window. I don't think I've hit a homerun since I moved to Slovakia. But one reason I do like Valentine's day is trying to do something for T that doesn't involve the usual Valentine's day suspects. This year that turned out to be vanilla pudding parfaits with blood oranges and real whipped cream. (Which, by the way, I made with one of those immersion blenders. Oh. My. Gosh. It was magic. It was liquid, liquid, liquid and then POOF! It was whipped cream!)
A couple months ago, our pastor's wife started something called Raňajky pre Mamičky, Breakfast for Mommies. About once a month or so a small group of us get together, have coffee and breakfast and talk about diapers and breastfeeding. Hehe, just kidding. Ok, so there's some of that too. But Linda usually tries to start a discussion or teach something meaningful, which I try to follow as best I can in between saving Bug from pulling down the espresso maker on herself, stealing other mommies' mobile phones or stealing other babies' binkies. Directly from their lips. Below was our Valentine's get-together. And now I have so much more to catch you up on, I'll call this a (very delayed) post. Hope all your V Days were rosy.
 |
Lily's valentine to daddy
|
 |
| Lily and Matuš |
 |
| The next day we woke up to this |
No comments:
Post a Comment