“What?” I say, though I already know. It is her recurring complaint.

“You’re acting like a bobble head doll again! Were you even listening to what I said?”

Well, good grief and excuse me. My answer should be “Probably not”, but she already knows that. I just can’t help it. She was using those big words that she has been learning in her biology class, and darned if I know what they mean. So what else is there for me to do but enjoy her attention (she’s talking to me!) and allow my eyes to glaze over while I admire her close up. Sigh.

For some reason, that bugs her. She tells me “All you ever do is smile and nod, no matter what I do (forgot her keys), or how I screw up (a lowly B on a calculus quiz). You never see it – you just smile and nod your head like a bobble head doll. If I want an honest opinion, I have to go to Dad.”

What? But my bobbling is always honest: my reactions are genuine. I have been enthralled by her since her birth. Honestly, I am just amazed that I had it in me to produce something so utterly magical. So when she does something that might be less than perfect, I just smile and nod. I know from experience that everything passes.

I’ve smiled and nodded through the gymnastic lessons that didn’t last all that long (wrong body type, the teacher said) , and the riding lessons that she fought after a year but then fought to pursue. I smile at her cat (the one she had to have when she was three years old), then wash my hands after every petting and go take my antihistamine. I smiled and nodded through those first cello lessons when she couldn’t find the strings, then the harp lessons. Both instruments now gather dust now that she has discovered Science.

I smiled through the history bees, which might be why she actually enjoyed them while the kids around us were gobbling antacids like they were candy – supplied by their parents. She never won, but she competed without studying and even made it past the first round.

I even smiled when she told me that she wanted to manage the boys track teams. Well, I think I did. I really tried. And she was right anyway – it was a great experience.

I know that there are some who disagree with the unconditional love approach: that a child needs to know disappointment and overcome it to succeed. Sure, disappointment and failure exist, but why should it come from a parent? I learned years ago that my daughter has an inner drive more compelling that any pressure I could put on her, so I can sit back and enjoy the ride. (It wasn’t me who made her practice that cello until her fingers bled so that she could win first chair.)

She recently participated in her first horse show. The very first one, after nine years of lessons that made her very, very happy. (So was that a waste of money? I don’t think so.) She earned a small handful of ribbons, but none blue. She had a great time: better than the blue ribbon winner who vomited in the corner of the ring. Of course, I smiled and nodded from the other side of the fence.

I just bask in her glow and realize that with every passed test, every first date, every college application, and every first show she realizes that she doesn’t need my help in, our days of co-dependency are getting shorter. Well, at least hers are.

I love this young woman unconditionally. If that makes me her bobble head Mom, so be it.

Nevertheless, I allowed her to go on her school’s annual field trip, or pilgrimage as some see it, to the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, Maryland. This prayerful walk of the fourteen Stations of the Cross is full of moments of reverence and contemplation, even for a seven year old. One can hope.

(The Grotto is very near Mount St. Mary’s University where I earned a degree. I always like to remind Miss Sunshine of this fact. She always likes to roll her eyes back at me when I do this, like I even thought she cared.)

Miss Sunshine was so excited Friday morning, the day of the field trip. She promised me that she would be on her best behavior. She put her lunch and told me not to bother with her gym bag: there would be no P.E. that day!

The day passed uneventfully for me, and Miss Sunshine was positively glowing when I met her at the gate after school. On our walk down the sidewalk, back to the van, Miss Sunshine sighed happily said that she LOVED the field trip. She had no recollection of any religious experience. She had played with her best friend, and the two of them ran around and crawled in the bushes until they got into trouble for being disrespectful. They were actually allowed to talk during lunch and she said it was almost as good as last spring’s field day at school. Both of the knees were blown out of her regulation navy blue stockings and there were plant particles in her hair.

On the way home, as she continued to relate her Grotto adventures to me, I asked her if she liked the statues, especially the one of Mary and she said “What statue?”

Maybe she will notice it next year.

Red indicates a certain kind of receptiveness in a woman: you can’t wear a red dress to a party and hide in the corner. If a girl wishes to send certain signals to her hot date, she doesn’t reach for the antique mauve lipstick. She breaks out the RED.

Yet, it is a warning in nature: back off!

Red is a sacred color: pass over this reddened doorway and spare the lives of me and my loved ones.

No surprise: I love rubies.

Both the Bible and ancient Sanskrit writings herald the red ruby as the most precious and valuable of all gemstones. The stone has been avidly mined since around 600 BC. Rubies are rare and special. They have been worn to ward off the plague and encourage prosperity. People thought that a ruby inserted into the flesh made one invincible.

Rubies were the original wedding stone for centuries, before diamonds became plentiful and more profitable around the turn of the twentieth century. How many of you knew that? A ruby on the hand of a new bride symbolized her purity, rarity and fertility.

When Jeff popped the question all those years ago, my answer certainly didn’t depend on the ring. I knew that he was the true gem I had won. But the fact that Jeff listened carefully and presented me with a beautiful ruby engagement ring is something I will always be impressed by. I had told him that for all the reasons above, and because rubies are the birthstone of both Jeff and Firstborn, I would like to wear one on my finger some day.

Sometimes I run into another woman with rubies as supporting stones on her engagement ring, but very rarely. I’ve never seen a round one set center stage.

This morning, standing before the cashier in a boutique I frequent … Tahr-jhay (ahem) … the young lady noticed my ring.

Cashier: Is that a real ruby?

Me: Yes.

Cashier: Well, that’s not very traditional.

Me: Actually, it is the original wedding stone. Did you know …

Cashier (her eyes glazed over): Does your partner have a matching one?

Me: No. He has a plain band.

Cashier: He?

Me: Um … yes?

Cashier: Oh. I thought a colored rock meant you were a lesbian.

Me: Oh! Well, I’m not.

Cashier: Well, it’s okay if you are. I mean, I don’t care.

Me: Well, I’m not!

Cashier: Whatever. Do you want to sign up for a red card and save 5% next time you visit?

Me: Um … I already have one.

Apparently the significance of red is just lost on some people. Next time I am looking for necessities, I’ll visit my other favorite boutique: Waaahl-Maahr. And the first thing I will buy is a “Stupid” sign for the chick at the other store.

This past Monday, as I sat with my friend waiting on our pizza while our girls were in dance class, I watched her non-dancing daughter working hard on a hand-made valentine. She carefully cut out the shape in both white and tissue paper, made a quote in a bubble in her best hand-writing (given that she was using an ink pen) and began to color in the arms and legs with a purple marker.

I thought “Wow” and spared an extremely brief regret for the prepackaged valentines that I hadn’t even begun working on with my daughters.

Valentine’s Day has shifted shape for me over the years. Its importance used to be the color of the roses (what does it mean if he gives me white, or worse – peach?’), how many chocolates were in the box – and what kind. I heard women that I worked with say “I told him what I expect, and if he doesn’t come through, we’re done …” And (except in one case) I actually sympathized – with the woman.

But over the years, my sympathies have shifted. I ask Jeff to save his/our money, but to spend time on me instead. Never stingy anyway, he is always good for an extra warm snuggle (or three) on Valentine’s Day, even if he doesn’t always listen and brings me a card and a treat after all. He always has something for the girls, which is okay too: he is the first man that all three fell head-over-heels in love with.

If Valentine’s Day really is all about love, then (and forgive me for saying this) it really is about children too. It is about the mother who braved my driveway at midnight on a school day: she had to work so late but wanted her face to be the one that her sleeping daughter woke up to in the middle of the night, and then again in the morning.

If there are late-night giggles under my sheets on Valentine’s Day, most likely it is because the Princess made an inappropriate noise at our slumber party and set off the rest of us.

It’s not that Jeff and I are not still starry-eyed for each other. It’s just that it is much easier to get a romantic dinner reservation, not to mention a babysitter, on another night. We can fly under our girls’ radar on other, less suspicious nights. This day is about the small things that we can do to show our love for each other, and to everyone we that we care for… not just us.

Just before our pizza arrived on Monday night, my non-dancing young friend turned to me with a shy little smile and handed me the valentine she had worked so hard on.

“For me?”

She nodded.

He is just perfect.

May you spend this Valentine’s Day in the company of someone that you love.

For those of you who, like my parents, have never heard of a white elephant party, here is how it goes: participating party-goers bring a wrapped present to put in a pile with presents brought by other party guests. Ideally, the present should be something received as a Christmas or holiday gift, but unwanted or un-needed by the bringer. So you get a wide variety of gifts, from the nice, to the naughty, to the just downright insane.

The names of all participating party-goers are put into a hat, which are pulled and announced one by one. When the first participant’s name is called, he or she walks up to the pile of wrapped gifts and chooses a gift to un-wrap in front of everyone. The next person whose name is called has the option of ‘stealing’ that unwrapped gift, or choosing another from the pile of unwrapped gifts. The third person then has two unwrapped gifts to chose to ‘steal’ from, or pick their own gift to unwrap. And so on and so on. The host or hostess sets a limit to how many times a gift can be ‘stolen’.

I hosted a practice at my house just after Christmas, with just a few friends. Since there really weren’t enough people to ‘steal’ gifts, the whole thing was over in about three minutes, even taking time to refill wine glasses. The fun that night wasn’t found in the game. Nevertheless, I had played without my ugly competitive streak blowing wide open and I felt prepared for our upcoming trip to Philadelphia.

Nope: I have never seen such a white elephant party in my life. Over 80 (yes – eighty) people participated. People who didn’t bring gifts had their names thrown in the basket; the host and hostess had enough for everyone. Even Firstborn had her name put in, though I forbade her to choose any gift that looked remotely alcoholic (without checking with me first). At the set hour, the host and hostess set the rules (only three steals on any one gift). Each time a gift was ‘stolen’, a sticker would be placed on it lest alcohol caused any forgetfulness.

There was a bottle of Dom Perignon that was stolen three times long before any of my group’s names came up, so I have still never tasted the stuff. At the other end of the spectrum, the woman who unwrapped a size 9 1/2 pair of Men’s black Nike sneakers in a questionable-looking box sat hopefully holding them out to everyone who approached the gift table after her. There were no takers.

With eighty plus people involved, the game dragged on and on … and on. Jeff’s name was called about an hour into things. We were getting hot and cranky and Firstborn had had enough of “this old people’s party”. Under Jeff’s name, I stole a set of gigantic vases that I have no practical use for, and then promptly went and hid in the entertainment room as to avoid being a victim of theft myself.

At least, I believe they are vases.

Firstborn had her eye on a beautiful white orchid plant, but by the time her name was called almost two hours into the game, she was too tired to track it down and steal it. She unwrapped a box of used placemats and some unopened DVD’s, then sat back down to stare at the wall and sweat.

Finally! My name was called! I took my time. I’d waited for more than two hours. I hunted down that white orchid that my baby wanted, and stole it from someone’s protesting grandmother. She said “please …” and I said “Thank you” as I snatched it out of her hands and let the hostess smack a theft sticker on it.

As I got back to where my small tired group was standing, our friend Gary’s name was called. He looked at that white orchid and said “Oh, good, I’m stealing it.”

I stopped, looked him in the eye, and with Firstborn looking on, said “I’m so sorry Gary. It’s already been stolen three times. It’s done.”

Gary looked me in the eye, then looked at the clear plastic enveloping the beautiful pure white orchid – the plastic with only one sticker on it, indicating that the gift had only been stolen one time, and being my husband’s best friend and the supremely intelligent man that he is, said “Oh, okay.”

I don’t know what Gary ended up with, but the next time he wants to steal a white orchid from me, I really will let him have it. And for next year’s white elephant party, I’m driving up the day before, getting a good afternoon nap and leaving the little ones in the hotel with a babysitter.

Game on!

Thank you, Gary.