Valentine's Day's true target audience

I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. To me, it's a contrived holiday where Hallmark and florists make out like bandits, and if someone really loved you, do they need a day to remind them of this? Over the years, Reid and I have made each other homemade cards for this special day, always out of construction paper. They've been super creative and usually say a lot about what's going on in our lives. There was one year when mine to him included an elaborate representation of his truck towing my car (ah the trip home from Texas), while his the year before was a longhorn with eyes that popped out when I opened it (since we had just moved to Austin). We didn't do dinners out or the over-priced flowers or jewelery (all of which I would gladly accept on any other day of the year!), but we each spent a ton of time cutting out little pieces of construction paper and ended up with way more than just glue stick all over our fingers.

Then we had Piper.

Last year's cards were talked about and never started. This year, no cards again.

The fact is they take a lot of time, and extra time isn't something either of us have a lot of and it all seems to be used up (while I type this, Reid is in the basement doing P90X). And thinking about this today, as I read through sappy update after sappy update on Facebook, made me realize who needs this grossly cheesy holiday the most: parents. There's no doubt that our free time has drastically diminished and changed since we had Piper. We now struggle to sneak in a workout, do the dishes, or just do nothing on the couch when that's all we have the energy for. Our house isn't as tidy as I would like it most of the time and Christmas thank yous take a month and a half to be delivered. Piper takes up all of the time that she's awake, which leaves very little time dedicated to romance and just to each other. I realized today that if anyone should be celebrating this holiday, it's us, even if it is contrived. Thinking more, we didn't even celebrate our last two anniversaries ... basically there are two days in the year when culture says to remember to just enjoy the two of you and they are your anniversary and Feb. 14. We totally need to make time and do this.

And just to clarify, I'm not a bitter Valentine's Day person. I never was dumped or had plans totally ruined or anything like that. I think my real issue with the holiday is that I'm a hopeless romantic, which to me means that I want to be told on any/every other day of the year how great I am and how much I mean to Reid. I just don't want him to tell me today because Hallmark says so.

So I'm not bitter, but I am thinking more rationally now and realizing how poor of a job we've done of keeping things romantic and special. Time to pencil it in, as romantic as that sounds!

Oh, and my labs came back today and my HCG dropped a good amount over the last week so my health continues to move in the right direction. If that's not a reason to celebrate, then I don't know what is.