Pimple

My three year old daughter holds my face between her two hands. Studying it; memorizing it. Or so I tell myself. My heart fills, remembering all the times that I have done the same to her. Looking for shadows of myself in her big gray eyes and tracing the curves of her smile. She turns my head right and left. Brings her nose up to mine, our eyes crossing as we try to focus. Will she remember my face like this when I am old?

"Mom, what's that red bump on your nose?"

Thin Ice

Last night as I was lying next to Lucas in his bed reading him a story, he rubbed my belly and looked at me expectantly, saying, "why is your tummy getting bigger?" I assume he wanted me to tell him that I was going to have a baby.

How do you explain premenstrual bloating to a five year old, while impressing upon him the importance of the extreme delicacy with which he should approach this subject in the future?

Goodbye

Lincoln is gone. He made it till spring, just short of his 10th birthday.

Ten years was not enough time.

A Wild Pack of Family Dogs

Our most recent milestone: Eric's dog, Cassie (for whom I have decided that Cassandra Louise is a better fitting name) spent the weekend with us.

This is momentous only because there was a time when my two bratty dogs would have tried to eat her. But, since they are now ancient, arthritic and/or sickly, all Lydia could muster was a half-hearted attempt to munch on her big poofy neck when first meeting her. I think she may have just been thrown off by all that hair. In fact, my once fearless, dominant, tenacious pit bulls only really noticed that there was a big hairy collie in the house when she plunked herself down for a nap in their path. Lydia woke me up crying in the middle of the night because Cassie had decided to sleep right at the top of the bedroom stairs and she couldn't figure out how to get through.

Still, as calm and well-behaved as they all were it was like being knee-deep in a pack of dogs all weekend.