I confess, I’ve never been a fan of Valentine’s Day. One might call me a Valentine’s Day Curmudgeon.  I always thought of it as a cheesy Hallmark holiday loaded with materialism geared to women.  I know…I sound like the Grinch.

A few things happened this week to change my tune, however.

It started with a conversation with a co-worker–who is a strong, independent woman–discussing her lack of understanding of the Valentine’s Day haters that are all over social media right now.  Why not celebrate love?  Why not have a day to remind us all to share love, because in the busy day-to-day, it is so easy to forget?  She had a point.

Next, another dear friend of mine gave to me a Valentine and a little box of chocolates.  She gave this with no expectation of receiving anything back.  She just took the time to say, “Hey friend, I love you.”  The chocolates didn’t even last five minutes, by the way.

Suddenly, I started to think about sweet confections I could make for my husband or maybe a nice dinner I could make for my family to show my love.

I rearranged the “Photo of the Day” images at my job to ensure the Valentine’s Day-ish photos would be featured this week leading up to Valentines Day.  What?

I even came downstairs one morning to discover that my mother-in-law shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into hearts for her grandson.

Yup. I took a quick picture.

My next sign from the Valentine’s Day Gods happened yesterday. I went to bring my son to daycare on and realized I missed a note about a Valentine’s Day party and the request to bring cards in for his class and perhaps a snack for their party.  I dropped him off empty-handed, hanging my head in shame that the sheer hectic nature of life my life made me miss a large sign on the door announcing these events.  That same morning, however, he and his little friend played as I chatted with her father.  I decided to take a video of them because they were so happy together.  I happened to catch, on video, this sweet little girl kissing my son.  How could that not be another sign that love is worth celebrating?  If you need a dose of happy, please watch this short video of these two lovebirds.  It will warm your icy heart.

I decided to stop fighting it; to stop being a curmudgeon.  I kicked this new attitude off by using an hour of my life for something completely impractical and not on the “need to do list.” I put Pandora on and made Valentine’s Day cards for Anderson’s class.  Since he is giving them out, they had to be something he is attached to. Everything in his life revolves around dinosaurs.  This morning, he said, “Hi Dinosaur Mama, ” and proceeded to ask me for “Dinosaur Papa, car?”   A few weeks ago, I went into his room in the middle of the night and without opening his eyes or waking up, he murmured “dinosaur” in his sleep.

I brought out my bin of scrapbooking paper and decided to make dinosaur cards of course.

Some glue, patterned paper, and you have some very easy dinosaur cards.

I made a quick dino drawing with two separate stencils: one for the dino and one for his plates, so they could be a different color.

I used the stencils to make eight dinosaurs.

And with some green paper for grass and some hearts, I now have eight cards for Anderson to give out on Valentine’s Day.

I’m telling you, this was good for my soul.  As a working momma, the things I feel I miss out on are “mom” things.  Sitting down to do a “mom” thing made my day.

Wait until Dada Dinosaur sees his card!

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  I’m a believer now!  I still don’t think it needs to be about gifts or material things, but why not celebrate love?  What is life without love?  I’ll leave you with this great read from Kripalu.org called Falling in Love with Life that came out this week.  It is about loving someone else that is very important: YOU!

**Update: The woman that inspired this post wrote a touching piece of her own about Valentine’s Day.  You can read it here. 
Pardon the bad cell phone photography.  I was too focused on my dinos to bust out my camera.