the dresser-shaped clot in his brain.

This is the dresser that almost killed my husband.

Not from being trapped beneath it, oh no. Nor from being crushed, as it dropped from a 30th story window. No.

Rather, from the dresser-shaped clot that formed in his brain, over the 4-hour task of putting this thing together. The sharp corners of such a clot, are apt to get clogged in some artery or another, causing the head to... explode.

"I hope whoever designed this dresser dies of bubonic plague," says he.
"Sadly, it would be an insult to plague sufferers everywhere," I say.

A cautionary tale, internet. There IS NO SUCH THING AS CHEAP FURNITURE. You always, always pay.

marvel.

Marveling a little at the fact that I have had nothing to say on this space in over a year.

There were the first bites and the first bubbles. First birthday and first bruises. A few exciting new kitchen appliances. Now, we are inching ever closer to potty training, and me = VERY excited to spend significantly less time talking/thinking/planning around... poop.

There is also the fun of living with a small person who can now talk. ish. Consists a lot of a series of very short conversations stuck in an endless loop:

At 5AM:
"What doing, Mommy?"
"Sleeping."
"What doing, Mommy?"
"Sleeping."

(Now repeat seventeen... hundred... times. You get the idea.)

And if I were to simply read it all on paper, it would sound insane, the idea of planning life around poop and spending the day having the same silly conversation over and over. And over. But there is something so wondrous about these little people, who are discovering the world new everyday, so joyful, so open, whose love is so guileless and so free.

That to belong to one of them, is an experience so fleeting and so lovely it almost hurts. I feel it slipping through my fingers each day, as I feel the shock anew of her growing up and away. From a squishy, blinking baby to this little person with opinions, and demands (oh, the demands!), a curly-haired soul so vulnerable, confusable, giggleable, wonderable. And mine.

Even if just for this little while.