You're taking your kids to Valentine's dinner? Really?

Valentine’s Day is all about you and your other half, right? So why are there so many kids along at V-Day dinners?

I don’t know about you, but there’s no way in hell my kids are coming to dinner on Valentine’s Day. However each year I notice more families dining out together on Valentine’s Day and I can only wonder, “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”

Is it a shortage of baby sitters?

Have these couples been married too long?

Did the children insist on being included?

Is it a sweet idea to include children on Valentine’s Day seeing as they are products of your undying love?

Valentine’s Day is meant to be the a day for lovers, for romance, for remembering those feelings that got you together in the first place. Chiding your children about eating their vegetables and not kicking their sister under the table isn’t romantic.

The only time I let my children encroach on date nights and couple time in my relationship is when we’ve been fighting and they prove to be excellent buffers against having the same old argument again. This year, I’m not feeling any of that. This year I want candles, I want romance, I want hand-holding, I want gazing into each other’s eyes, I want to feed my husband some of my meal and taste some of his, I want everything that Valentine’s Day is meant to be.

I want a box of chocolates that I get to eat by myself. I don’t want to share it with my kids. Watching them bite into one then announce, “I don’t like it” and throw it into the bin makes me want to cry. It’s my special chocolate! It’s mine mine mine!

I want the full Valentine’s Day romantic experience knowing my children are at home, tucked into bed and likely to be fast asleep by the time we get home so we can continue those romantic feelings, if you know what I mean.

Maybe we should get a hotel or even spend the weekend away? Actually scrap that. It’s too expensive and it’s hard enough to get a baby sitter to stay until 11pm let alone the entire weekend.

I understand if you have a little baby and you’ve brought your baby along to dinner, if they’re under 6 months. If you time their naps and bottle right the should sleep through most of your romantic dinner.

We have nine grandchildren in my family and we all fight over my mother’s baby sitting services each year. Whomever gets in first gets dibs. My brother got in first this year so he’s all set. The rest of us are scrambling to find baby sitters who don’t have their own romantic plans. I just have to have a romantic evening on Friday. I really love my husband this week. The timing is perfect.

Otherwise, it’s dinner with the kids and we’ll probably have to eat pizza early then go home, put them to bed and sort of sit around despondently wondering where all the romance has gone.

Will you be celebrating Valentine’s Day this Friday? With or without your children?