Love Languages

Almost 26 years ago I read The Five Love Languages. At that point, Paul and I both had the same two primary love languages - quality time and physical touch. A couple of months ago I had all five of us take a love language assessment online. Paul's top two languages haven't changed. In my case, my top two languages are currently physical touch and acts of service. Considering how little time he and I have had together over the last seven years, I was surprised that quality time is his primary love language by a decent margin. I still scored the lowest for "gifts." When we were dating, I was renting an apartment and living alone, so I can see why words of affirmation and quality time were more important to me than acts of service. Now that we own our own home, it makes sense that acts of service are so much more meaningful to me as I don't have a landlord to call if something needs fixed in our home. Words of affirmation was in third place back when we were dating, and this time words of affirmation were tied with acts of service for second place. Physical touch is also the primary love language for Paul and Oliver, in second place for Ian, and (no surprise) in last place for Nadia. Gifts are the most significant to Nadia (primary) and Oliver (second place). I thought physical touch would be Ian's primary love language, but it was time, and after I thought about it, that made sense to me as he is the one who the most often asks me questions like, "Do you want to play a game with me?" Gifts and words of affirmation received low scores from Ian whereas physical touch and acts of service were tied for second place for him. Gifts and time were almost tied for first place for Nadia; acts of service and words of affirmation were tied for third place for her. Acts of service and quality time were tied for third place for Ian. I was surprised that "words of affirmation" was so low for Oliver (5%) because he writes me little messages like "I love you" at random times, which is not something I receive from anyone else in the family. I wanted everyone to take the assessment because I want to make sure I am expressing love to each family member in a way that is most meaningful to them. 

Nadia and her ice-skating teacher

In the early years of our marriage, Paul and I used to give each other gifts for Valentine's Day and go out on a date. Over the last 20+ years my taste in what I'd like to receive as a gift has definitely changed. I used to receive good jewelry from Paul. That's no longer my preference. I get more excited about something practical like a new kitchen faucet (something Paul gave me for my birthday several years ago). Paul and I haven't exchanged gifts on Valentine's Day for quite a few years.  When the kids were younger, they did receive some gifts on Valentine's Day from Paul's mom and my mom. A few years ago, I started a tradition of buying them each one gift. One year I got them each a book, and another year I got them each a jigsaw puzzle. Since we've been finally getting in the habit of having a family fun night once (and sometimes twice) a week, I decided to primarily get games this year in addition to some candy for each of them, and I decided this year to also get one for Paul not just for the kids. I got Spontuneous for Paul (a singing game because he always jokes about how he's going to be joining the praise team at church). We've played that one twice already, and we had fun. Nadia likes it the best. I got Ian the game Double Ditto and purchased Taco vs. Burrito for Oliver. Nadia has been enjoying watching old TV shows on the iPad the last few years (Cosby, Full House, Family Ties, Wonder Years, Saved by the Bell, Seventh Heaven, etc.), but we haven't found a way to stream Growing Pains so instead of buying her a game, I purchased a set of DVDs containing all the seasons on eBay for her. Hopefully she will enjoy watching that show. Oliver was hoping to get another nerf gun. If I didn't buy him a game, I would have gotten him another puzzle as that boy is doing puzzles every day!

Korean War Memorial in DC

We have a tradition that I make the kids heart shaped food on Valentine's Day. This morning I made them a heart shaped egg inside a piece of toast. We were invited to two different (free) homeschool Valentine's Day parties today - one at a bowling alley and the other at a roller-skating rink. We chose to go roller skating from 1-3pm because the rink is much closer to our home than the bowling alley. Celebrating Valentine's Day has morphed from going out to dinner with Paul to taking my kids to a roller-skating rink. 

The pictures in this post are from a variety of days - the living history fair, ice skating lessons, and our day in Washington, D.C. this past Saturday. We drove down on Friday afternoon and had dinner at my friend's house. She and I were roommates from 1994-1996 when we were both teaching at the same school in Annapolis. We spent the night at their home and then drove into DC on Saturday morning. I typically opt to take the Metro into DC, but since it was a Saturday in February, I decided we'd park in a parking garage near our final destination and get around on foot the rest of the time. Our first stop was the WWII Memorial where we had a 30-minute tour by a park ranger. We also visited the Lincoln, Korean War, and Vietnam Memorials. The kids earned a Junior Ranger badge. I was unable to procure tickets for the Washington Monument. We attempted to go in the National Archives prior to seeing A Horse and His Boy, but there was a long line. In hindsight, I wish we had just opted to visit the Jefferson Memorial on our way to the show. We plan to visit DC several more times in the next three years as there are many sites and museums the kids haven't been to yet (Ford's Theatre, White House, Capitol, Holocaust Museum, Spy Museum, etc.) so hopefully we will make it to the top of the Washington Monument in the future. We had tickets to ride that elevator and visit Ford's Theatre in 2020, but naturally those were cancelled due to you know what. We had lovely weather for walking around the mall on Saturday.