This Week

This week, since I've been home, my little one who I call "Entropy" has been particularly snuggly. I sit on the sofa and she snuggles with me. I sit in the "Lazy-Butt" chair and she gets in my lap. I go lay down and she's right there. She also has been really good about getting me glasses of water and cough-drops. I cough and it's "Do you need a cough drop, mama?" She's so very sweet.

I don't think I really understood how much you can love a child until I had one (or two). I love her long legs and her delicate fingers. She's all legs and thin little arms and bunches of hair right now and when she snuggles with me, it feels like I have a little bird under my arm.

She got in bed with me last night and snuggled against my back. I rolled over and took her in my arms. She snuggled up and looked me in the eyes and said, "Mama, can I ask you something?"

Expecting great and earth shatteringly profound questions, I said, "Sure, baby. Anything."

"Mama, can Monks lie?"

OK, not as profound as I would have thought.

"Sure baby, they can lie, but they try not to."

"Oh. Okay."

We went on to talk about Monks for a while. How they try not to kill anything, except maybe ants and how they wear funny clothing. Then she asked, "Mama, is it true that Orangutans have people DNA?"

"Gee, baby, I don't know. I know that most life on Earth shares some DNA."

"Well, most life on earth is made up of the same elements, too, right? But that doesn't mean that it's all the same. (long pause) Mama, what rhymes with Orangutan?"

We play the rhyming game for a while after that. (Ant, Bant, Cant, Dant, Eant, Fant, Gant, Hant and so on.... but in this case (Angutan, Bangutan, Cangutan and so on.)

"Mama, what do you pray for?"

"All sorts of stuff. What do you pray for?"

"That we get more chocolate. And that the ants go away. And that you get better (followed by a kiss). Sometimes I just get really thankful for stuff."

"Like what?"

"Chocolate. And the internet (like is this my kid or what?). But especially Mama and Daddy and Chaos and Little Kitty."

Gee, that's exactly what I'M thankful for too. Daddy and Chaos and Entropy and Little Kitty and Chocolate and the Internet.

Thanks, God.