Romance isn't Rocket Science

To all the men out there...

Here's a little lesson in Romance.

When I married Hector I thought we knew each other pretty well. Now fast forward almost 5 years into our marriage and I stand corrected. Sometimes I think he knows more about me then I know about myself. It's scary.

So on with the lesson.

Neither one of us are really huge on Valentine's Day, but we generally do something little to commemorate the holiday. I think its just a fun day to show everyone you care about that you love them. So this year, now that we have a kid and all we decided to share one thing that we love about each other every day for the 14 days leading up to Valentines Day. It was pretty fun and we started learning more about how we value one another. The best part was that Eliana was having a pretty rough time sleeping well at night during those 14 days and it was starting to wear on me so since we shared our reason right before bed, it gave me something to look forward to other then a sleepless night. However on day 10 my husband surprised me.

The night before happened to be an exceptionally rough night with Eliana. She was waking up every hour or 2 and before Hector left for work he stopped to give me a kiss and see how I was doing. Apparently I looked horrible and he asked me if I was going to be okay. I just nodded and rolled over. Since E was still asleep I wasn't going to miss out on precious minutes of uninterrupted zzzzz's. I can discuss my lack of sleep with him later. So he leaves for work and I am still in bed. About 20 minutes go by and Eliana decides to wake up. A happy awake, but nonetheless awake. So I got my grumpy irritated self out of bed and tended to my child's needs. It wasn't like she was going to feed herself (although I keep hoping for a miracle).

I drag my feet over to her bed and of course she is smiling and so I smile back (3 months old and she is already manipulating my moods). I spend about 4 seconds smiling and cooing at her until I see this bright orange wrapper laying on top of her. I grab it to see what it is ...

Yuuuuuummeeeeeee. It was 9:30am so what did I do with my new found surprise? I opened it and ate it of course. If this was Hector's way of putting me in a better mood... it worked. At this point I didn't know if the Reese's was his way of saying I love you or his way of making me still love Eliana even though she was being a giant booger when it came to sleeping. So after I chowed that puppy down I headed to the fridge because I was desperately in need of some milk.

I open the fridge and to my surprise again I find...

Now, my first guess was that he bought 2 Reese's hearts. One for me and one for himself. The one for him he placed in the fridge. A completely logical explanation for heart #2, but then I thought what if there is more?? So after I ate heart #1 I drank some milk and then thought long and hard about it and decided to wait on eating heart #2 in case it was in fact for him. So I proceeded with my normal routine and low and behold...

Heart # 3!! Now I was super excited :) I knew if he had taken the time to hide 3 then there had to be more. So what did I do? I went back to the fridge and ate heart # 2 of course. Only because now I knew for sure it wasn't waiting for him to get home. And to follow with heart # 3, came 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and eventually 9.

#4 Under Harley's leash because he knew eventually I would walk her. 

#5 In Harley's food because well eventually I would feed her too. 

#6 Eliana's Diaper Caddy - which apparently needed to be filled with more diapers. 

#7 - The computer because in all honesty I am on this thing 5+ hours each day.

#8 Eliana's Boucer because when I get tired of holding her she goes here :)

#9 was eventually hand delivered at the end of the day when he came home from work. Why 9 you ask? because we have spent the last 9 Valentine's Day loving each other. Seriously I was melting. On top of that he bought me flowers the next day. And not your V-day $19.99 2 dozen red rose special - he bought me tulips :) He looked for peonies first (which are my favorite), but apparently they cost $20 a stem right now and are hard to find.

He chose 5 pink ones for the years we have been married and 

4 yellow for the years we were dating.

So to put it in the simplest of terms I was melting like butter in a microwave. The fact that he thought about what I do every morning when I wake up to get through my day was just precious. So this leads me back to my point... Romance isn't Rocket Science. Husbands, boyfriends, significant others etc. it doesn't matter if you have been together for 1 year or 50 years knowing how to romance your wife is worth its weight in gold.

Hector definitely knows me. I like thought put into gifts. I don't like the most expensive thing on the market (however a girl does appreciate sparkly things). So even though I doubt he will read this I just have to tell you honey - Best Valentine's Day Ever (although v-day #1 was pretty awesome too, props to Daniel Ambler). He also bought me a Kindle which is something I never knew I needed, but always wanted and now that I have it am trying to figure out how I ever lived life before without it. You know what I mean?

So anyhow sometimes a girl has to brag about how amazing her man is :) not for my sake, but for his. I hope this somehow goes full circle and gets back to him. Because hearing how tickled I was from someone else is even better then hearing it directly from me. 

Part 2: My gift to Hector

So I will admit I am a horrible gift-giver when it comes to my husband. He likes nice, expensive things and has a very specific taste so whenever I set out to buy him something nice I almost always fail. A part of me has given up and most of the time I just take him shopping with me so he truly gets what he wants. However, if there is one area where I do succeed its in making him gifts. In the past I have made him picture collages, framed poetry, artwork etc. I hadn't made him something in awhile because I thought he preferred nice, expensive things, but he made a comment one day about how I hadn't made him anything in awhile. Soooo I set out to make my first iMovie about our last year together and I got the exact reaction I was hoping for...  sniff sniff ; )

Here is the direct link in case the embedded version is slow  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr34HxLoNXw