Riding off into the sunset...

We are not traditional here, as you may have already figured out.  Today is Valentine's Day, and in a previous post I gave the perfunctory nod to obvious symbols of the consumer driven holiday event.  So today, knowing my young child is excited that there is another day to celebrate (insert images of candy & cartoon character cards here) with his classmates, I am pleased he leaves the doodle to me.  I am lucky - Oscar is very figurative in his thinking.  He simply asks for me to draw "something romantic."  Not really sure where he has picked up this word...thinking not a part of the Hanna Barbera vernacular.  Maybe it was Ghostbusters 2?  Either way, my mind leaps to a singular image from my childhood - the seahorse.  I have always been drawn to the sea - when I was a kid, I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau (the girl version of course).  I didn't have any princess fantasies.  I wanted to ride on the back of a seahorse and explore the shimmering depths of the ocean.  They were mythical...so filled with magic & mystery surely they couldn't be actual creatures.  After all of these years, I still have this dreamlike feeling when I see a seahorse.  I imagine it carrying me off into the horizon with the promise of discovery.  Oscar looks at my drawing.  "I like it mama."  "Yeah?  Is it romantic to you?"  "I don't know,"  he says.  "I don't know what 'romantic' is.  Is it sea stuff?"   Wow...why not just explain where babies come from while I'm here?  So I do, kind of.  "Hey, you know daddy seahorses have the babies in their bellies like human mommies do?"  "I remember we learned that at the aquarium!"  Yep, diversion is the parent's wild card alright.  Use it as needed my friends.  Have an awesome Monday xoxo