Staying In on Valentine's Day

I'm a girl. I'm supposed to want flowers and chocolate and fancy dinners and silky lingerie on Valentine's Day, right? I should be frantically calling babysitters right now, trying to book someone to watch the kids so that we can go out and be all romantic. I should be making dinner reservations and looking for the perfect little red dress. I should be ... but I'm not.

I may be a girl but I'm also a homebody. Apart from a short (and ill-advised) bar-hopping stint in college, I've always preferred to stay in. If given the choice between an evening out on the town or a night at home reading a great novel, I'll choose the novel, hands-down.

My husband wants to take me out on Valentine's Day. Just last night, he was looking up restaurant reviews online and asking me where we should go. He's excited about the prospect of a night out. A night away from the kids. A night of romance and adult conversation. He thinks I'm excited, too. I don't know how to tell him that I'd rather just skip it. So I'm considering lying, telling him that I can't find a sitter, or that the restaurant I want is booked. Then we can stay at home, order take out, rent a movie and snuggle on the couch, maybe even open up a bottle of wine and light the fire. My husband will be a bit disappointed. But I'll find a way to make it up to him.