Love is...

Remember the "Love Is..." cartoons from the 1970s? In case you don't, Homer Simpson's description might ring a bell. According to Homer, they're "about two naked eight year olds who are married." I loved them back in the day with their Kewpie doll bodies and pithy definitions of love. "Love is... taking one day at a time." "Love is... turning his head."

I've got a new definition of love. My nine year old daughter checked out a Judy Moody and Stink chapter book from the library for my seven year old son. She loved that series when she was in first and second grade and was excited to share the experience with him. A few days later I saw him reading it with a resigned look about him. I asked if he liked it and he dropped his voice to a whisper and said, "It's horrible, but I don't want to hurt Hayden's feelings." That is love, my friends! Anyone can wear an ugly shirt or tie, spritz on stinky perfume or use an unwanted appliance that was given as a gift, but it takes someone special to read a book he does not like all the way through. I am so impressed with my son's selfless act of love I feel like letting him go pick out one of books he loves about superheroes or farts. Loving behavior needs to be rewarded after all. Let me tell you, sitting through him reading those is an act of love as well.

One more note about those sappy comics. John Hodgeman once stated on The Daily Show "Love is... a quasimental illness prompting the bizarre sexualization of genital-free infants into a daily cartoon strip." That leads me to my last definition of what love is. It is my husband staying up later than he wants to allow me to watch The Daily Show in bed all the way to the closing credits just so I can giggle about stuff like that the next day.