Project Valentine 2012, Day 4: Hid Something in Her Suitcase

Courtney left town yesterday morning for a critical care nursing conference in Houston.  She won't be back until Wednesday evening, which makes it a little more challenging to do something nice for her each day.

Sometimes when Courtney travels, she gets kind of nauseous.  Couple that with pregnancy and, well, you can see how it would be even worse.  One thing that's always helped her, though, is sour candy.  On Friday night, when I ran out to get ice cream for movie night, I ducked into Walgreens and bought a card and some Sour Patch Kids.  After the movie was over, I quickly wrote a note in the card and slipped both items into her suitcase while she was in the next room.

I got this text from her yesterday while I was out with the kids.

Success!  And yeah, I put little smoochie smilies in my message.  Deal with it.

Project Valentine 2012, Day 3: Movie Night

First, I have to brag on Blake for a second.  There's a monthly event called the First Friday Art Trail, where different galleries and venues around Lubbock open their doors to the public to display work by area artists.  Last night, one of the galleries had a display of work from All Saints students, and one of Blake's pieces was selected!  It's the Keith Haring-inspired piece right above his head in this picture.

Mrs. Lemon is a really great art teacher.  Blake comes home telling me about the stuff they've learned in class, and it's far more in-depth than anything I was doing in first grade.  Small world - my mom actually taught one of Mrs. Lemon's daughters over a decade ago.

Courtney left town this morning for a critical care conference in Houston, where she'll be for the next few days, so I wanted some time with her last night.  We got the kids to bed after we returned home from the gallery, and I went to get ice cream for the two of us while Courtney chose a movie for us on Netflix.  See, that way I'm romancing her on two fronts - giving her the snack that she wants, and showing her that I'm able to relinquish control of the Netflix queue when it counts.  To her credit, she chose a Steve Martin movie, something that I can always get behind.

I guess there's not too much to describe about watching a movie together.  We sat next to each other, held hands, and enjoyed both each other's company and the ice cream.  When I started to doze off, she'd stick an elbow into my ribs and tease me about being an old man who couldn't stay awake through a movie anymore.  It was nice.  It made me think of when we would watch movies together on my couch back when we were dating, just with lots less making out.

Project Valentine 2012, Day 2: A Day Off Together

I had something a little different in mind for yesterday, but the way that the day turned out was actually even better.  The alarm went off and I started to shower and get ready for work.  As I started to lay out clothes for the day, Courtney asked, "I don't feel very well today.  Do you think you could stay home with me?"  And that's what I did.

We dressed the kids and took them all to school, and then came home and just spent the day together.  We went to our room and spent over an hour talking with each other.  It is really, really nice to have a conversation where you aren't being constantly interrupted by tiny people.

She napped, and I laid beside her, and although it wasn't what I had planned, it was great.  When she'd wake up, I'd check to see if there was anything that she needed.  At the end of the school day, when she usually goes to pick up the kids, I was able to go do that for her.

A short entry today, I guess, because there isn't much to describe, but it was still a really nice day.

Project Valentine 2012, Day 1: Love Letter

First things first: I posted yesterday's blog entry and almost immediately received a pile of messages from friends who were amazed to learn that Courtney is pregnant!  This is my fault.  It's such a part of our lives right now that I sometimes think I must surely be talking and writing about it far more than I actually am.

So here's what's happening... Courtney is almost twelve weeks pregnant with twins right now.  For several years, going back to before Jack was born, she's felt led to become a surrogate, and it's a path that we've been on for a while now.  I've mentioned it on here a couple of times, both directly and indirectly.  I guess that there are a few reasons I've been a little quiet about it overall, though.  First, I've wanted to be respectful of her privacy and of the couple she's carrying for.  Second, just like when it's your own pregnancy, we've been holding off on making an announcement until we felt like it was safe to do so.  The couple she's carrying for is a really fantastic couple, and they're very excited.

Now you can't say that I didn't tell you!

I thought that a good way to kick off two weeks of romantic gestures would be with a good old fashioned love letter.  Like a lot of things in relationships, this is something I used to be much better about back when we were dating, but have sort of fallen out of the habit of doing.  I don't think that a day passes when I don't tell Courtney that I love her, but I wanted to give her something she could hold onto, you know?

I sat down once the kids were in bed, and got to work.  It was harder than I thought it would be, because once I started, I had to self-edit a lot.  I thought of posting the finished letter here, but ultimately decided that it really should just be for her eyes.  I tried to follow a piece of advice I'd seen, though, when I was writing: a love letter should express appreciation of your past, happiness with your present, and hope for your future.  That's what I tried to go for in this letter.

She wasn't working last night, and after a while she looked over and asked, "What are you working on so intently over there?"
"I'll show you in a minute."

I finished writing just as she went to change into pajamas, and she called to me from our room to ask if I'd pour her a glass of milk.  I did, and put the note down beside it.  I didn't want to watch over her shoulder as she read, so I stayed in the next room, but I could tell that she was reading it, because I could hear her starting to sniffle.  She came into the room smiling from ear to ear, and thanked me for her letter.

I'm going to rate Day 1 as a success.

Project Valentine 2012

I have got to get my mojo back.  I just reread the last post I wrote on here: a few months ago, I would have spun that story into comedy, but instead I took it in a sappier direction.  What do I need?  What I need is... a Project.

I made one New Years Resolution this year, and actually it was also kind of sappy.  My resolution, which I have so far only shared with Courtney, was to make her fall in love with me all over again like when we were dating.  This May will mark our tenth anniversary, so I thought it would be a good time to make sure I'm doing my part to keep the homefires burning.

You may not have guessed this from reading my blog, but sometimes it takes a lot of patience to live with me.  I mean, I like to think that I'm a pretty good guy, but I also do stuff like hogging control of the Netflix queue for months at a time or bringing international attention into our lives.  In spite of all that, though, Courtney encourages me and wants me to do what I love.

Here's just one story about why I love her.  With the exception of a few recent additions, my musical tastes are pretty much frozen in the mid to late '90s, when I was in high school and college.  I've never outgrown the all-too-brief Britpop boom, when the world had Pulp, Oasis, and Blur to listen to.  So, when the line-up for this year's Coachella festival was announced, and I saw that Pulp was reuniting, I really wanted to go.  (To say nothing of the many other great acts!  Madness, Mazzy Star, Radiohead, Noel Gallagher, The Hives!  Many, many others!)  At first, this was just idle chatter on Facebook, until my friend Steven hit me right in my vain soft spot with this observation: "You've never been to a music festival?  Going to this and writing about it would make excellent material for your blog."  He and I decided that we would try to get tickets and travel there together.

But I still had to pitch it to Courtney.  I put it in the nicest terms I could, but it still boiled down to, "I would like to ditch you and the kids for a long weekend while I go camp in the desert with my friend, where we will be partying and listening to music.  Did I mention that this will take place while you are five months pregnant with twins?"  And you know what?  She not only told me she was fine with me going, she was enthusiastic about it.  She wanted me to have that experience.  As it turned out, Steven and I immediately got placed in the standby system when it was time to purchase tickets, where we sat for the rest of the afternoon as we watched Coachella sell out.  But still, Courtney was willing to let me go, and that meant a lot to me.

I did a Project Valentine last year, where I watched a different romance movie every day in February.  This year, Project Valentine will be something different.  Every day between now and Valentines Day, I'm going to do something special for her.  Because I don't want to rush these, I'll post each day's project the next day, along with how it was received.  This will be a bit of a challenge, because she's going to be out of town for about 5 of those 14 days, but that just means I'll have to be creative.

Don't worry - this is going to be fun, not schmoopy.  Maybe a little schmoopy.

Dear Tooth Fairy, We Cool?

Man, I have really been struggling this month with a lack of motivation.  Not just motivation to sit down and blog, but motivation to do much of anything except eat chips and play Skyrim.  I can't blame it on winter doldrums, since it's pretty consistently been in the 70s, and I can't blame it on a lack of things that need to be done, since there are still three children who live in my house.  Gotta shake it off.

One thing that I've kept doing, though, is going to All Saints every Wednesday to volunteer with the chess club there.  Sometimes Blake brings his lunch to the library, and we'll eat together.  While I was there this week, he suddenly gasped and looked down at his food, and then pointed out to me the tooth that had popped out when he took a bite, and which was sitting right on top.  He was excited because he knows, after losing six other teeth, that a visit from the tooth fairy means fifty cents.  I was excited because I didn't have to pull it out myself.

The nurse at All Saints keeps a stash of little plastic treasure chests for kids to put their teeth into to make sure that they get home safely, and Blake was really eager to go get one.

We have this little tooth pillow that used to be mine when I was a kid.  He put his tooth into it, went to bed, and his unmotivated dad completely forgot about it until the next morning.

"My tooth is still here!"

"Ooohhh... You know what?  Um...  I forgot to let the Tooth Fairy know."

"She doesn't just know?"

"Well, um, they give you her email address once you become a parent, and you're supposed to let her know.  I'll be sure she gets the message today."

I say these things, and then think that surely, SURELY, he must be on to the game, and is only playing along because he knows he gets money out of it.  But last night convinced me that Blake is still a true believer.

It was time for bed, and I was trying to get him to follow me into his room, knowing that Jack wouldn't get into bed until he saw Blake do the same thing.  Blake kept hanging back by the chair where his coat and school bag were, digging around his coat pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"I just need to check my coat pocket real quick!"

He walked into his room with a slip of paper hidden in his hands, held close to his body where he thought I wouldn't see it.  I asked him what it was, and he told me it was nothing.

"Well, what's written on it?"

And then he just dissolved into sobs and tears.

"I took the tooth back to school to show my friends, and I lost it there, but I knew that you were going to send a note to the Tooth Fairy today, and I didn't want her to think that I was lying about losing a tooth!"

Here's what the paper said:



I disguised my handwriting the best I could, wrote "I Love You" on it, and tucked it back into the tooth pillow along with two quarters after he was asleep.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Some trivia to start out your 2012 with: the month of January is actually named after actress January Jones, who plays Betty Draper on AMC's hit series Mad Men.  For real!

I can't believe you went and double-checked me on Wikipedia!  OK, it's actually named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions.  He has two faces, one to look forward, and one to look back.  Because it gives me an easy, lazy post to start the year with, I'm going to take a look back at Look What Danny Made! in 2011, and a look forward at some of what I've got in mind for 2012.

So, things that happened in 2011:

• Got bitten by a spider
• Watched a month of romance movies
• Had a wooden tomato winged at me
• Made the most bitchin' pie in the world
• Ate weird foods for a month
• Got off the couch; lost 50 pounds
• Took in a stray; still trying to get rid of it
• Enraged China
• Took a month of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• Lost my dad; still getting over this one
• Redesigned this joint
• Watched a month of horror movies (again)
• Did a month of service projects 

I'm looking back at that list right now, and I'm going to have to go ahead and pat my own back a little bit.  2011 was neither my very best nor my very worst year, but it was the year when I decided to do things and I did them.  Sure, some of them were silly things like watching a whole bunch of movies, but I feel like I also managed to accomplish some really positive things, like the weight loss and the service.

I'm still firming up ideas for things to do this year.  There's going to be another Project Valentine, but it's going to be something entirely different this year.  I'm planning two movie projects, the conclusion of Project Horror and one TBA.  Project Gastronome is coming back in April, to see what other nations I can anger.  I'm also going to be doing the Marine Corps Fitness Test once a month between now and December, and reporting the results (and hopeful improvements) here.

But I'm also planning something that is going to be my biggest project EVER, not just on the blog, but in my life.  How big?  This one won't take a month, it's going to unfold over the next several years.  I've shared the details of it with a very few people already, but I need to get a few more details in place before I'm ready to unveil it here.  I'll give you the name: Project Summit.

Happy New Year, friends.  What are you going to do this year?