When I uploaded my current puny little “Daddy’s Girl” post – the first one in some time – and I saw all the titles with Valentine in them, I realized I was a little out of step – not that there is a right or wrong topic, I know, but I just felt a bit behind the news of the day, if you will.  Shortly thereafter, I recalled a story that would have been perfect to include and very in tune with the holiday.  I share it now.  It is a story my Mom has liked to tell for as long as I can remember. 

Being the firstborn of eleven, I enjoyed some substantial quality alone time with my parents for the first twenty months of my life.  My mother taught me colors and shapes and numbers while we waited on the porch stoop for my Dad to come home from work each day.  My Dad was a mason, a bricklayer.  He worked with heavy block and concrete and often came home covered in concrete dust.  He liked a good soak in the tub at the end of his day, besides which we didn’t have a shower.  As a toddler, I would regularly go in the bathroom and chat with my Dad while he soaked and when he dried off.  In February of my second year, my mother had been spending a lot of time with me cutting out heart shapes and teaching me about “Valentines”.  Apparently after one of our father/daughter tubside chats, I came out into the kitchen and reported to my mother, in that high-pitched voice that toddlers have, that “Daddy has a very nice Valentine!”

As to exactly which angle of which part of his anatomy I was astutely observing, well, that remains pretty much up for grabs, so to speak.