Cupid Catastrophes

Let's remind ourselves what we know about me:
1.  I'm insecure.
2.  I may or may not be going through a midlife crisis.
3.  I'm frantically fighting the natural aging process while still desperately attempting to be attractive to my husband.


All of that leads up to this year's Valentine's Day. 

(((WARNING)))  This entry is not for the faint of heart.  (Read:  easily offended.)  If this is you, turn back now, no hard feelings.  If you disregard this warning, pray for me if you must, but try to fight the urge to send me hate mail.

It all started last month with a challenge from one of the girls in my Bible study:  "Go home and ask your husband what he finds physically attractive about you."  For the insecure, that is not as easy as it sounds and it took me over 2 weeks to finally do it for fear he'd either laugh at me or worse, not be able to think of anything and resort to the go-to..."Um, your eyes?"  So, late at night, on February 13th, in the pitch black of our bedroom, I mustered up the nerve and in a shaky voice I pathetically said, "It's okay if you can't think of an answer..." and then asked the big question while I squeezed my eyes shut and waited.  They popped open when he didn't miss a beat and started listing things off.  He started with my hair and a couple minutes later ended with my tan and had lots of specific details in between.  What?!?  He doesn't see what I see when I look in the mirror?!  Score!

With my heart still soaring from his answer, I awoke on Valentine's morning to find a gigantic balloon, candy and a card with a very personal and meaningful message written inside.  With an idea from that same bible study friend, I began planning a 'Family Date Night' dinner complete with fancy dishes, wine flutes, heart shaped cookies and pizzas from our favorite place.

After dinner we played a game I made up.   My husband held a big pink paper heart and we went around the table and each said what we love about him.  Then he popped the dice on the old 'Trouble' game board and we passed the heart around the table that many spaces.  The heart was handed to 5 year old C, who assumed the person holding the heart possessed the power to approve or disapprove each person's answer and sometimes demanded more specifics of things we adore about her and would even offer up suggestions.  Well that's loveable.  She popped the dice.  Back to my husband the heart went amidst a few grumbling "Again?"  No offense, I'm sure, and he enjoyed his 2nd turn.  He popped the dice.  Back to C.  This time, there were loud groans and some refusals to participate with one threatening to quit.  To be honest, I didn't think I could survive another C turn, either.  So we pitched the dice and simply passed the heart so that everyone got a turn.  By the time the grease-stained crumpled heart got to me, everyone had lost interest in my awesomely loving game and I received some pretty lame reasons they love me until we got around to my husband who hadn't been paying attention and sat looking at me.  I said, "Well, what do you love about me?"....and he started with my hair and before I realized why this sounded so familiar, he was reciting his detailed list about my body from the night before while our kids mouths gaped open and by the time he got to my tan they looked visibly ill.  Z broke the awkward silence when he looked at me accusingly and said, "How did you possibly think this would go well?"  Good point.

But my date night with my hubby 2 days later would go uneventfully, right?  Right.  Until, just for fun, I handed him the remote to a pair of vibrating underwear (don't judge me, you know you either have a pair or want a pair) and I nearly ended up on my knees in the parking lot of Fridays Restaurant when he thought he was unlocking our van doors. 

His remote was immediately confiscated. 
Clearly he can't be trusted with that kind of power.