my Valentine's day memory

Jason accuses me of having a very short term memory. I don't know that I can argue that point ususally, but every so often, I will be reminded of a fond childhood memory. Today I was thinking about what we will do for our kids on this Valentine's day, and I remembered back to when I was about Joshua's age.

As I was thinking about what my parents did for us six kids, I have a great memory of a wall hanging my mom made that hung on the back of our door. On this wall hanging was a Valentine's elf for each child. Each elf was holding a heart pocket with our name on it where secret goodies could be stashed. We would draw names of our secret elf, then throughout the week leading up to Valentine's day we would put little goodies, pictures, or whatever we wanted in our secret elf's pocket.

I really don't remember what I got or what I gave, but the thing I do remember was I had the biggest heart of all six kids. I think that was more exciting to me than any treat I got. I guess secretly in my little 9 year old (or so) mind I thought this meant my mom loved me just a bit more than the other kids.

I know now, as a parent myself, that this wasn't the case. My mom probably gave me the biggest heart because my name is longer than Kim, Kris and Kari, and Criag and Brian wouldn't care cuz they were boys. But for me, it made Valentine's day just a bit more special.