Is love in the air today?

Roses are red,
crocodiles are snappy,
He might not be perfect,
but my Panther makes me happy…

OK so it’s not going to win any literary prizes, but it’s sort of the spirit of the day. Eh, Snookums? Fluffy bunny-bum? A dozen red cliches and some scratchy pants.
Valentine’s Day is clearly a load of commercialised tosh – you only have to glance at the heaps of overpriced pink, red and heart-shaped tat to know this.
But what’s the harm in pausing for a think about your Significant Other? The Light Of Your Life. Him Indoors.
Man bashing is really easy to do – there are whole discussion groups set up for it. sillythingsfoolishmendo.com, howdaftisyourhusband.co.uk and the facebook group Does Anyone Know a Man Who Can Look After Himself? or @sillybillyboyswiththeirwillies on twitter.
We all know Men are from Mars, that they don’t understand shopping and can’t be relied upon to plump a cushion properly.
But isn’t that rather the point – they are different. They are the outie to our innies, the Yin to our Yang. the Pot Noodle to our Wagamama ramen soup. How dull would it be if they understood us totally? Actually not just dull – downright depressing and awkward. They’d know when we had been on a sneaky shopping spree or scoffed all the kids’ chocolate. They would probably be really understanding about PMT when what we really want is a squabble. Where would the satisfaction be in that?

So here’s a little list of the things I think are marvelous about The Panther.

He’s on my side, no matter what.
He says he doesn’t care how fat I am – except he did cheer when, pregnant, I overtook him on the scales, but I forgave him because he went out and got me some ice lollies.
He makes brilliant pancakes and fried potatoes.
He does all that noisy, fighty stuff with the Boys that I can’t stand.
He takes the Boys to see hideous movies like Transformers so I don’t have to.
He fills my hot water bottle for me without asking.
He does most of the night feeds for Boy Three.
Every night he goes and checks on all the Boys before he gets into bed.
He cares what I think.
He comes to the rescue.
We’ve been through so much together.
We both understand life’s too short not to make the best of it.
He – usually – notices when I’ve made an effort.
Just when I’m really exasperated by him, he’ll reveal that he’s actually done/ not done the very cause of my frustration. It gets me every time.
He laughs at most of my jokes.
And he makes me laugh out loud a lot.

So there you have it – sounds good, doesn’t it? Well hands off he’s my Panther.