Sophia, I'll start with you.

Not because it is a monumental day in your life or anything, but because I am avoiding all the other things that I want to write. These things take actual thought. With you, there is no thought, just simple being is all you want, and sometimes I don't realize how good this actually is for me. What therapy! To dismiss everything that awaits my attention in the corners of my mind to simply spend time throwing a ball in your arms that are making a bit O to resemble a basketball hoop. You make a lousy hoop, by the way. The circumference of your arms is too small, so the ball just lands between that O and your nose. Tonight this made you crack up at the 1000 times I threw it, though. Good enough.

You seem unsettled lately, and I am positive it is because I am unsettled. Despite my efforts to pretend that all is well with bags of valentine candy and new videos, I still notice that you stiffen when you hear my voice crack when I say even simple things, like "want juice?"

I am sorry, but life forces us into periods when they days seem heavy, and I will never be able to shelter you from this. You have been such a bear when I try to put you to bed and I cannot help but wonder if it is because you are afraid to leave me alone, that I will somehow break under the heavy day and fail to come get you in the mornings to say, "want juice?"

Tonight I could not handle the devastation you displayed when I told you it was bedtime--the tears falling from your large, scared eyes, and the mumbly something or other about not wanting to be in your bedroom. I forced you sit in my lap and tell me about it, about what was wrong with the bedroom. I reminded you that there were butterflies hanging from the ceiling that bring good dreams about all of your favorite princesses and friends. Through your sobs you managed to tell me that tonight you were going to dream of you, me and daddy. This made me realize that our tiny family trumps all of those princesses and friends, and bags of candy and new videos cannot mend that part of your life that seems broken and unstable most of the time.

I don't know what to tell you. That one day you will be so embarrassed by your parents that you will hope the ground swallows us whole? That we are going to anger you more than please you with our constant "no" and "too dangerous" statements? Right now you want us all together, and that is all you know.

I am sure daddy is thinking of us from whichever part of the crap-hole called Michigan he is in, and I am thinking of him and of course, you. From where I am sitting, I can hear your tiny breathing and random rustling over the baby monitor. I am mustering every restraint to not run upstairs and snuggle us together in my bed. I hope your dreams have started, and I hope they take you back to our many family hugs, where daddy and I pick you up and squish you like a marshmallow between our tired but grateful bodies.