Look out, Cupid’s got a camera

OF ALL THE seductions, a wife might be the toughest. So I’m plying her with moving pictures of another man. He’s 2, and likes to shove Froot Loops up his nose.

“Hey, over here,” I tell the baby.

“Where?”

“Here,” I say, “toward the video camera.”

“Ya-ya-boooof,” he screams and trips over a baby chair.

This should be easy. A video capturing a day in the life of our family, by me, the Spielberg of the suburbs. Too late for Sundance. Too shocking for the Academy Awards. Let’s just say this little piece of filmmaking may change cinema as we know it. And not in a good way.

“Dad, what are you doing?” the little girl asks as I videotape her watching TV.

“Just pretend I’m not here,” I say.

Normally, that would not be a problem. I am relatively invisible to my kids, until they need money or a ride to the mall. Then, I reassume the human form and they come at me like germs to a kiss.

“Dad, you’re in my way,” the little girl says.

“What’s that show?” I ask.

“Ashlee Simpson,” she says.

“She has her own show?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” I say.

Seducing your wife should be easier than this, right? A box of Godiva chocolate. A tender personal gesture. The right Volvo. Those are the things women are supposed to appreciate.

Well, maybe a long time ago. Back when women were a simpler sex than they are now. Back when they were more in touch with their feminine sides.

Back then, my wife and I had a grand history of small intimacies. I held her hand. I sipped from her lipsticked coffee cup. Four times, I cut the umbilical cords that lashed her to a wee baby. Yep, we go back a bit.

I once caught her eye across a crowded pizza party. Groped her at weddings, including her own. Zipped up her evening dress, when she was a size 1. Size 1?

I’ve waited up with her on prom nights. Accompanied her to open houses. Bought houses. Painted houses. Furnished houses. Sold houses.

One Christmas, I surprised her with a Baldwin piano she didn’t really want and never played. On her 22nd birthday, I gave her a cocker spaniel who looked disturbingly like Rod Stewart. For 14 years, he gorged himself on her best shoes and snored under her pillow.

Over two decades, I’ve gifted her with bad poems, dirty limericks, soft-core porn and R-rated back rubs.

One year, I even bought her a minivan, white as a tube of Crest. And about as thrilling to drive.

“It’s just your size,” I told her.

“I love it,” she said and meant every word.

I’ve bought her clothes that didn’t fit and artwork she didn’t like. Books. Wine. Lobster. Lingerie.

Scallops as big as hockey pucks.

I’ve surprised her with weekend trips, shimmered her with gold, dazzled her with diamonds.

“Are they real?” she asked skeptically during one of our poorer economic periods.

“As real as the love between a man and a woman,” I said.

“Oh.”

“As real as the bond between a husband and a wife,” I responded.

“ ‘Nuff said.”

I’ve bought her watches and French pastries and antique lamps I repaired myself (sort of).

At considerable expense, I’ve gotten her good seats to AYSO soccer games. Front-row tickets to watch her little boy pitch. Backstage passes to the 5th-grade talent show. That’s right, the 5th-grade talent show.

Now, I’m shooting her a video. A cinematic triumph. Hollywood’s next great romantic comedy. Darn, how do you set the date and time?

“It’s called ‘A Day in the Life of Us,’ ” I tell the little girl.

“Seriously, Dad?”

“I’m a very serious man,” I remind her.

The little girl thinks a second. Watches me zoom in on the toy-strewn den, the dog that needs a bath, the worn couch on which we wait up for kids to come home from prom.

“Why would anybody want to see all that?” the little girl asks.

“It’s for Mom,” I say. “For 20 years from now.”

“Can I watch it?” she asks.

“It’s too intense for kids,” I warn.

“Really?”

Really. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes .com.