“We are RIDICULOUS!” I muttered to Bill around 2am this morning as he was putting the zipper into these pants. “Positively ridiculous.”

It started off as many things do with us, and I’m guessing with many couples in different ways. Our daughter had outgrown her bathrobe and I had gotten a pattern to make a bathrobe for her out of some leftover flannel that we had in the studio as a Valentine’s Day surprise. Then at 8:45pm we had that sinking recollection that the flannel we were looking for had not made it out of the storage unit post-move and the other pieces we had weren’t going to be enough.

“Hey! What about the pants fabric I got in Houston at Market?” I suggested.

Now this is yet another example of our ridiculousness. In Houston last October when setting up our booth for Quilt Market, I realized that I needed some white fabric for cushions in the booth. I found on my GPS that there was a great fabric store nearby so I ran over there before I was supposed to be at a networking party. But of course once I got in said wonderful fabric shop I immediately started looking for fabric to make a pair of winter pants for Sophie (because as longtime Craft Nectar readers know, they don’t make many cold weather pants for girls). Anyway, there I was, having spent the day setting up a trade show booth alone, when I should have been getting dolled up for the networking event and YET I was standing in the fabric store on the cell phone asking my 10 yr old if she’d rather have pants made out of pink camo velveteen or floral corduroy. And then I couldn’t find a pattern for girls pants that weren’t skinny jeans, which our daughter hates, so I ended up getting a pattern for boys pants. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the shower by now?” the Voice of Responsible Business Owner kept saying. “Just gotta grab the zipper…OK, where are the 6″ zippers?” I answered. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, Bill and I convinced ourselves that “Sure. We can make a Burda pants pattern with inset pockets, a zipper and a rear yoke. And it’s no big deal if we’re not starting this until 8:45pm the day after we had 70 people at our house and 2 swim meets over the weekend.” Like I said, we’re ridiculous.

“At least I’ll get a post out of it,” I muttered around 1:30 as I was topstitching the pockets. We did all of the this not because we think that it’s going to make our daughter love us more. Not because we want her to have everything in life. We did it for the memory she’ll always have of the Valentine’s Day when she woke up and there was a pair of soft pants in her favorite colors right next to her alarm clock. We did it for that little gasp of excitement we can hear down the hall in the morning when she discovers that we made something fun for her.

Love’s like that. It can make you crazy.

Happy Valentine’s Day.