My Funny Valentines

An honest reflection on motherhood, mess, and the kind of love that doesn’t follow the plan.

This week I spent every day packing in activities. I kept convincing myself it was because we were stuck inside for nearly three weeks with a virus from hell that claimed approximately 72 ice pops, two full cans of Lysol, and an unnamed number of tissues.

But maybe the truth is motherhood feels easier outside the walls of our home — when we’re active, going, doing.

Maybe it’s because the mess I’m usually able to tune out suddenly feels deafening. I don’t know where to start because I feel like all I do is clean up messes, cook meals toddlers don’t eat, clean the mess from the meals I made… rinse and repeat.

When I finally had some free time at home with McQueen and Baby McQueen, I thought Valentine’s Day–themed art projects would be a hit. I set up a heart-shaped pasta necklace–stringing station. I had even special-ordered the pasta weeks ago in anticipation of this very moment.

It was a hit for all of five minutes.

Then our dog started eating the dry pasta, which my one-year-old found hysterical — so naturally she tried shoveling it into her mouth too. My four-year-old decided crunching the pasta into shards across the wood floor was a better game.

Moving on.

Mess-less paper hearts with red, white, and pink acrylic paints sealed inside a Ziploc bag? A jackpot activity, right?

Wrong.

“I want to FEEL the paint!” my son insisted. Meanwhile, Baby McQueen was laser-focused on unzipping the bag to get to where the real fun was waiting. Fail number two. Someone pushed someone to get to their craft. Someone screamed. Someone cried.

It wasn’t me — but I felt like doing both.

I could feel the heat rising in my body. That familiar frustration when the activity takes more brain power to set up than the time it entertains them. When you’re trying so hard to be the mom who offers creative, stimulating alternatives to screen time… and nothing goes the way you imagined.

And then I realized something.

I’m still a good mom.

If you’re a mom reading this, here’s your reminder: you’re still a good mom too. You can lose your cool. You can fumble and make mistakes. You can raise your voice and apologize. You can hide in the bathroom for a minute to collect yourself.

And if you’re not a mom, but you’re putting pressure on yourself to make Valentine’s Day something grand, something memorable, or even just tolerable, depending on your season of life: you’re probably doing better than you think.

My funny valentines rarely follow my plan. And that’s okay. They’re exploring, learning, testing the world around them. That’s their job.

So what’s ours?

To find the seeds of truth buried inside this totally commercialized Hallmark holiday.

To abandon the sticky-sweet, plastic, aesthetic version of love — the kind that’s supposed to go according to plan. Because the older I get, the more I accept that life rarely does. And somehow, that realization feels freeing.

The road winds. Sometimes it leads somewhere better. Sometimes it’s terrifying. Sometimes it changes us completely. All we can do is take the chance and go along for the ride.

This holiday has nothing to do with the biggest flower bouquet or the most romantic reservation. It’s not about the jewelry gift or the long, sappy social media post secretly written to make everyone else compare their relationship.

(You know the ones.)

Maybe the lost lesson of Valentine’s Day is learning to give love less conditionally and more abundantly in the everyday monotony.

To our children. To our parents. To our friends.

To say yes when your daughter asks to play the Frozen soundtrack for the seventh time and belt out the lyrics with her instead of frantically cleaning the kitchen. To pick up the phone and tell your mom you’re thinking of her, just because. To text your best friend something you love about her on a random Tuesday night. To grab your husband his favorite coffee out of the blue because you know it will help him power through a rough morning. To wrap your arms around your partner while they’re doing the dishes because you know you’ll feel their shoulders soften.

Yes, you can do the handprint heart crafts. You can make the extravagant reservation. You can plan the Pinterest-perfect Valentine’s Day.

But you can also use this day to simply honor the people who make you feel loved and seen… and try to carry that feeling forward into tomorrow, into March, and beyond.

You can slow down. You can soak in the sweetness of a tiny hand reaching for yours, even if it’s covered in peanut butter or paint.

The other night, Baby McQueen wrapped her tiny arms around my neck in her rocking chair, and I just breathed her in. Even now, thinking about it, I can feel my chest soften and the corners of my mouth lift. It’s the little things. The unplanned things. The unfilmed things. Maybe even the unspoken ones.

So happy Valentine’s Day.

Whatever the day brings, may there be no shortage of chocolate — or love.