If we were having coffee, when I walk to the table, I notice a cherry danish where I would normally be sitting.  “Are you expecting someone?” I ask you, half serious.  You, silly! you say. You bought me a treat for Valentine’s Day, and now I feel like an asshole because I hadn’t thought of the same thing.

You wave me away when I say that, and point to one side. A side you cut. It was actually half of yours, but you knew I would feel like a jerk and you wanted to get a little chuckle this morning. I’m so glad I please you, I say, rolling my eyes. You notice I’m not drinking out of a paper cup, but a porcelain one. It’s actually quite big and you joke with me about being at Central Perk, from Friends. Oh stop, I say. You’re not that funny. You throw a napkin at me.

If we were having coffee, you ask me about Valentine’s Day with Cohiba and the Wee One.  I shrug and roll my eyes. Cohiba and I really think it’s just a Hallmark holiday to make money so we don’t really care about doing big gestures. Instead, we went out for (a very early) dinner as a family, as we usually do on Saturday nights. We talked and made plans and watched the Wee One interact with other kids and learn about gravity by dropping things. You tell me you’ll be having a ‘Galentine’s‘ dinner with friends, which I think sounds like fun.  I’ve actually never done that, and I just now realized that I could. You can come to mine next year, you say, if you make the cut.

This reminds me of a really sweet offer a friend of mine made. The Wee One’s birthday party is next weekend, and she said I could call on her if we needed any help picking anything up! Until she said that and I started thinking about it, I didn’t even realize how much having an extra person would help and how much her offer meant to me.  You know, being a mother is also teaching me about friendship and being a good friend. Lessons I would not have learned otherwise. Cohiba and I were talking about that at dinner last night, how the Wee One has helped us be a better couple.

That sounds like a pretty nice Valentine’s Day lesson, you muse, and I agree.

If we were having coffee, you would ask me about how the story is coming; am I still working on it? I tell you that I think I’ve set a goal to finish my March. Ooh! I should put that on my 52/52! I say. Have you heard of National Novel Writing Month in November? You squint your eyes and say you think you have. When I do the blog posts every day in November, I’m doing it in lieu of a No, a novel.  Have you every written one in a month? you ask me, and I tell you I haven’t, but I did write over 10,000 words, which is more than I’ve ever done before.  And I don’t think this story should be a novel, at least not right now. So a 10,000 word story is good.

Well, I’m looking forward to it, you say.