A Different Kind of Love

It's almost Valentine's day, and you know what that means? It means I have my yearly bag of conversation hearts sitting on top of my fridge so I can steal a few each time I walk by. Maybe not every time ...
My children discovered the bag yesterday and began begging for hearts once finished with their meal. My daughter had finished before my son, but as soon as she started begging, he did, too. We enforce the rule that you have to finish what's on your plate before ANY kind of sweets. And sometimes that means they don't get any. Today, my son still needed to eat several bites of meat, so my husband had picked out a heart and laid it on the table near me until he was finished. I had been putting up leftovers and saw the heart when I looked down, not realizing it was set aside for our child.
"OH! He found one my favorite flavor (white) that says 'I love you!' So sweet!"
My husband gave this sheepish look before saying, "Ye-e-es, of course I did." He went and grabbed another heart for our son. I knew as soon as he gave me that look that it had been a happy accident on his part, but one he would have done if he had thought about it.

This is all very silly, probably, but it's little things like that which keep the sweet in our marriage. So many people say that they're no longer in love. IN LOVE. I hate that phrase. Love isn't something to fall into or out of. It's actions and choices, each and every day, to put our spouse ahead of all others and keep trying to make them happy because it makes us happy. It's finding a heart that says just what you want to say and slipping it into a busy hand. It's sneaking a hug for a moment in the midst of a crazy kitchen before the two-year-old comes and pushes you apart at the knees to demand attention for himself. It's staying up too late some nights because there were no moments for just the two of you earlier in the day. It's not the big things. It's the little things that make the chaos of life more bearable because you're going through it with someone.
That's love.
This may all seem a bit strange coming from a person who writes romance novels. But I hope you can see through the romance of the story that the couple is building a stronger foundation so that once the newness of the attraction wears off, all these little things will still remain. And I hope you have someone to find your favorite flavor of candy and slip you a piece every now and then, too. What little things keep the romance going in your life?