Valentines and Vaginas

From the Vagina Monologues. Not quite office-appropriate.

Happy Valentine's Day! I am head-over-heels for Valentine's Day because I jump a the chance to tell someone I love them, and I want to share this joy with my girls. It's the perfect excuse to make a craft, bake with chocolate, and relax a bit about things in life that are hard. A good day in my books.

I've had some great Valentine's Days in the past, but my two absolute favourite Valentine's Days celebrated a different kind of love: the love of vaginas. Have you even seen The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler? I have seen two performances of this incredible play, one at Queen's University and one at the University of Alberta. The first time I watched my friends perform the monologue (and I wish now that I had had the courage to perform along with them), and the second time I took my father's wife's mother (let's just call her May) to watch Jann Arden perform. Both times blew me away. Made me proud. Made me cry. And, most importantly, these performances stuck with me for years, fueling my commitment to teach my own girls to love their vagina.

Here's the thing: I want Alyce and Shira to be proud of their bodies. All of their bodies. We just can't be proud of something we don't talk about, so in our house, we talk about vaginas (Hi, Matty!) and that's just not going to stop. So Valentine's Day in our house will always, for me and my girls, be a day for vaginas.