A few years ago, Clay and I had a really crappy Valentine’s Day. That day, I went into the hospital for outpatient surgery—a D & C for a missed miscarriage and a polypectomy. So there was nothing remotely romantic or celebratory about that day. But, my darling little Twyla helped me out so much! I wanted her to come with us for the procedure because her sweetness calmed and comforted me. I had dressed her in a frilly pretty Valentine’s dress that she was so adorable in, and it made me smile just to look at her. At that time, she was a mellow, quiet little toddler and didn’t complain the whole time there at the hospital. I remember lying there waiting for the surgery to happen while watching Twyla scribbling in a coloring book and munching on some crackers, and I forgot about my nerves.
Still, we didn’t have a Valentine’s holiday that year. So, the next year we really wanted to make up for it. With newborn Lucy and an active 2-year-old, we really didn’t want to all go out to dinner. I was breastfeeding Lucy a lot then, so she at least would have come along. And then dinner out is expensive, and a babysitter would be needed for Twyla. All of that sounded complicated so we decided that Clay, who attended cooking school for a year back in his younger years, would cook a really yummy dinner at home. I love his eggplant parmesan, so I went to the store and bought all the stuff, and he got off work an hour early in order to prepare the lovely meal. He labored in the kitchen for an hour or so, baked it, and it came out beautifully. We had a nice salad and good bread to go along, so it seemed just as good as restaurant cuisine anyway. We were very happy about how our Valentine’s Day was going.
The three of us dug into the scrumptious dish and Twyla, not yet the picky eater she is now, chowed it. After a few minutes, we noticed the area around her mouth and her hands where she touched her food had become red. We wiped her off thinking it was staining from the red marinara sauce. When it did not come off, we realized it was irritation, as if she was having an allergy. Right about at that same moment, my mouth felt itchy, and Clay said his mouth tingled and itched as well. This surprised us because Clay and I had never had a reaction to eggplant, and Twyla had eaten it a couple of times before with no such repercussions. Needless to say, we stopped eating and washed Twyla really well, but she seemed to be even redder. Because we weren’t certain about the extent of her allergic reaction—if it would get worse before better—we decided that she needed to get it out of her stomach. So Clay held Twyla over the bathroom sink with his finger down her throat to make her gag. It took a few times and much consolation, but she threw it all up. Then it occurred to Clay and me that with my increasingly itchy mouth and lips that the evil eggplant we ate might get into my breastmilk. Lucy at that time was having nightly crying fits and didn’t sleep well, so I couldn’t imagine compounding that! I wasn’t sure about the allergen passing into breastmilk but decided to play it safe and make myself throw up as well to help get it out of my system. So there I was vomiting in the toilet, and we therefore had ourselves a delightful Valentine’s Day pukefest!
It turned out that the allergy was minor and seemed to be just skin and mouth irritation. Twyla’s face returned to normal in a couple of hours. And I was hungry with no dinner in my tummy, so I made a PB&J sandwich.
Two years later, Clay and I are of the mindset that doing nothing special for Valentine’s Day is an improvement to those two years and does not lead to disappointment. So this year, like last year, we are ordering pizza, making each other Valentines, hugging and kissing one another, and saying how much we love each other over and over.
