On our honeymoon, my husband and I got carbon monoxide poisoning. We were carried out of a mountain resort with oxygen masks strapped to our faces, and we ended up in a Motel Six watching the Republican convention on a black-and-white TV.

On our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, my husband had to travel for work. To console myself, I bought bubble bath and a chocolate pie, but while I was in the tub, our dog ate the pie.

For New Year’s of 2000, we’d planned a celebration that included Dom Perignon, but instead we caught a respiratory illness so severe it made swine flu look like a luau. At the moment the millennium turned, all we could do was shift uncomfortably and wave at one another.

So it’s been clear for over a decade: Romance is not our strong suit. And now that we have two kids, it’s not just catastrophes that get in the way.

I pointed this out to my husband last week as I watched him fry up some sausages with peppers.

“Huh?” he said, in mock surprise. “I’m doing romantic stuff for you all the time.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Like what?”

“Like the time I did that thing with the thing.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Or,” he trailed off, “that…time…hurmph…”

“Now you’re just making up words.”

“Well,” he said wryly, “what do you mean by ‘romance?’” I’d been waiting for him to ask. “You could bring me flowers,” I suggested.

“All right.”

“Or you could bring me chocolate.” And then, because I knew what he was thinking, I said, “Chocolate that doesn’t have a hard candy shell.”

“Oh.”

“Or you could write me a poem.”

He considered for a second, and then he said, “It sounds like you’re getting the better end of this deal.”

It was true. “Romance,” the way I was defining it, meant that he would give me stuff, and I would take it. “Well,” I said. “What would you like?”

He shot me a mischievous look, but all he said was, “I’d like for you to grab the silverware.” Then he slid the sausages onto a plate, and we called the kids for dinner.

The next day, he sent me an e-mail that said:

Roses are red Violets are blue. If you’re going to Meijers, Get those crackers I like.

“Very funny,” I wrote back. “And how many times do I have to tell you that there’s no ‘s’ on the end of ‘Meijer?’”

That night, with Valentine’s Day on my mind, I proposed a little experiment: Romance on purpose. We could try doing all kinds of typically “romantic” things, “like rose petals on the bed and stuff.”

“Rose petals?” he scowled. In his mind’s eye, I knew, he was dragging our vacuum cleaner up the stairs. Still, I forged ahead. “Should we do a whole week of romance, or something shorter?” I asked.

“Something shorter,” he said automatically.

“And we can start tomorrow?”

He said, “Why not?”

But the next day, a Tuesday, I thought of a reason why not. “The season premier of Lost,” I told him. “It’s a three-hour extravaganza.”

He understood right away.

So, we agreed to delay Operation Romance on Purpose (ORP) by a day. We spent that evening on the couch together—me staring open-mouthed at the television, him refilling my wineglass when I wasn’t paying attention.

The next morning, before he left for work, I kissed him and gave him a reminder.

“Romance tonight,” I said.

He nodded seriously and said, “I’ve got big plans.”

I wondered what that could mean. Was he joking? Probably. But maybe not! Maybe this would be a turning point—a day we’d mark on the calendar with heart-shaped stickers and a spritz of perfume.

Maybe, just maybe, we’d enjoy romance so much that it would become an everyday thing, like flossing.

I herded everyone out and loaded up the minivan. We’d made it halfway to school when my son went pale and declared that he was having “tummy troubles.”

Germfest 2010 (as we refer to it now) lasted for six days.

Six days of sheets, towels, and buckets. Six days of cursing, worrying, and wiping. Six days when no one thought of rose petals and everyone wished for escape.

Romance had been thwarted once again. ORP was put on a back burner, and then forgotten entirely.

Or so I thought.

On the seventh night, when I tucked my son into bed, his tummy was untroubled at last. I rested my head beside his gratefully, and then I dozed.

Later, when I stumbled into my own room, I saw that there was a bag of chocolate on my nightstand, along with one flickering candle. And there, in the semidarkness, was my husband—the man who makes sure my wineglass is full, who does more than his share of gross laundry, and who agrees without complaint to my half-baked ideas.

He was sound asleep in the candlelight, and his arms were extended toward my side of the bed.

Heather Heath Chapman is a writer and a mother of two. Her honeymoon was actually wonderful, gas masks and all. You can reach her at heatherchapman1@me.com.