0 minutes ago  2 comments

My Kid Is Sweeter Than My Mom's Kid!

Today at the pet store, my daughter saw a face not unlike this one:

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/6725300-lg.jpg

and told me, "Lionfish sad." She saw a bulldog this morning and made the same accusation; her pattern of behavior suggests that she is far more sensitive than I have ever been.

We stood aside the aquarium for a few more seconds before she bumped her face and head against the glass--not with the gusto with which she likes to startle the fish, but more deliberately. She looked up to me and said, "I want hug him." I hope to God (or whatever my relatives are calling their all-powerful Omni-Santa these days) that your sweet heart survives these next few decades better than mine did, Button.

0 minutes ago  3 comments

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

He looks like nothing so much as a supporting muppet from The Dark Crystal--small, and red, enormous eyes in his tiny head gathering data and drawing whatever conclusions one can with no standard for comparison beyond nine months in a womb with no view. I can tell what he thinks of me no better than he can tell what I'm thinking as I gaze back down at him. But someday, I'll be able to tell him mine.

These two days have been the diametric opposite of every "Day Where If It Can Go Wrong, It Will" that I've ever had. When I went to pick up The Button from preschool on Thursday, her first day with a brother, she ran to me, saying, "I need Henry! I need Henry!" It hasn't yet sunk in for her that she may not enjoy the new dynamics. The pets know, though; we've dug a proverbial sub-basement for the lowst member of the hierarchy to inhait (Ylime claims this is the newer dog; I say it's her toothless, clawless cat, who couldn't protect our family from an attack by soap bubbles).

What was I in my previous life to get to have this family? I must've cured cancer. Twice.

On Monday, I was playing with The Button in her room; she was trying to undo *my* buttons, tapping each with a finger and saying as she did so, "Need help this one, need help this one." I sat up, and she hugged me, and said, "I love you too much, Daddy." I don't know if that's possible, Button, but if it is, that's what I'm doing; that's what I'm doing with you all.

0 minutes ago  3 comments

Ignore this essay.

No, really, ignore it.