A sunny, cold Sunday in DC

A fair amount to report, but not much energy or enthusiasm to do so. We went to the Natural History Museum today which Margaret loved, running around and pointing at everything. My response to the fossils was: "How does someone spot these things in the dirt? Or identify that the blip in the mud is the remains of a carbon-based life form?" Then Teddy woke up and got fussy, and Margaret got tired and fussy, so we had to cut our visit short. Then again, we were at the museum for an hour, so in light of the prevalence of fussiness in our life at this point (just ask Maddie), perhaps that's not so short in the big scheme of things.

I'll post more about Teddy at daycare (he did fine) and my time at home with Teddy (we're doing ok, but he has some issues) when I'm not as tired. Instead, I'll just offer some photos to placate readers who really follow this blog for the photos.

Share

Margaret's vocabulary is growing by the day, as I notice when we play a stream of consciousness, free association game when we walk down the street and I say whatever pops into my head. "Brick," I say. "Brick," she replies. "Fence." "Fence." "Tree." "Tree." "Truck." "Truck," she says in a way that sounds disturbingly like a certain curse word. She gets almost all of the one syllable words, although certain sounds that I have yet to isolate can cause problems. When I feel like challenging her, I toss is a two syllable word. "Stoplight." "Sewer." And so on. She gets most of those. Then we really ratchet it up and try some words with three syllables. In almost every case, she drops one of the syllables. So she has a clear wall in her verbal skills that she hasn't crossed yet. That's also evident in the "sentences" that she structures since "sit down" is a possibility while "I'll be back" becomes "I back."

But one of her favorite words at this point is "share." She appears to have learned it at school and will say it in a very serious, earnest way. "Share," she'll say as she grabs a toy. The problem, however, is that she doesn't really seem to understand what it means. To her, "share" seems to mean that you have something that I want and you should give it to me. So when we saw her younger friend Laura over the weekend and they were both tugging on a doll stroller, we would say "Share." And Maggie would response, "Share!" with solemn look on her face as she tugged at the handles. This, I think, is a difficult concept, so it's not surprising that she's a bit confused.

On other matters, today was the first daddy-Teddy day at home during my time off before he starts daycare fulltime. With Margaret, I took off a lot of time, but work issues and the fact that we're already paying for his daycare spot make that less feasible with Teddy. But over the next three to four weeks, I'll be spending around three days a week with him at home.

Today was our first day together. And it went pretty well. He did ok with the bottle, although he liked to snack and nap a bit as seems to be his style (he's also a sloppy eater as he'd dribble a lot of his bottle down his chin.) When he was awake, he didn't fuss too much since he'd either grin at me when I engaged him or would spend time looking at whatever I waved in his face when I was trying to read my book. He wasn't a good napper since he only slept for 45 minutes at a time, but in general, he seems to be a pretty happy baby, grinning a lot without the fussiness that accompanied his sister. I'm sure that will happen at some point, but he seems pretty pleasant. And not to toot my own horn, I'm probably better at dealing with the inevitable baby crises than I was with Margaret.

But tomorrow, I have to go to work. So Teddy will be spending his first day at daycare. They're very excited to have him, and I'm sure he'll do well, although he'll probably come home with a cold. In any case, stay tuned for a Teddy at daycare post.

Maddie's at the sanatorium

The fussiness of our eldest child and the stress that caused for Maddie have led us to ship her off with the grandparents to New England for some rest and relaxation. We debated whether to send her up until the moment that they pulled out of our garage with Maddie curled up in her bed next to Eleanor.

Maddie is probably having a blast. To begin with, the break from the kid has to be nice for her. In addition, she always likes to go to the "vacation home," a reference that inevitably makes her perk up. Historically, that term has been used for visits to my parents' house where Maddie would stay when we'd take a trip to someplace like Europe (alas, something that isn't in the cards anytime soon.) But the home of the CT grandparents also qualifies as a "vacation home," and I suspect that Maddie is having a ball.

However, not having her around is a bit of an adjustment for us. We go for a walk with the kids and come home, but there's no dog waiting for us. I get up in the morning and there's no jingling collar reminding me that I need to let Maddie out. I go for a walk to the corner store to get a lemon, and I don't have Maddie to take with me. And she's not waiting outside for me when I come out of the store. I mistakenly drop food on the floor while cooking dinner, and Maddie isn't there to clean up after me. And she's not there to lick Margaret's tray after dinner, even though Margaret yells for her, using a singsong cry of "Maddie" that probably mimics my summons, when something falls off her tray ("Uh oh, Maddie!") and when the tray is taken away after Margaret is done. Having the dog around is such an integral part of our life that we almost don't recognize it. A key part of our daily schedule involves trips to the park, primarily to play ball with Maddie, but now we're aimless. I run through the usual names when asking Margaret to point out Mama, Papa, and Teddy, but then I hit Maddie and, oops, she's not here.

Abby pointed out that it will probably be particularly hard on me since I'll be taking some time off over the next few weeks to spend time with Teddy before he goes to daycare. She's probably right about that, but even more, Maddie has always been my dog, first and foremost, for better or worse. She spent the first year of her life in almost constant company with me as I wrote my dissertation, and I suspect that I'm the focal point, and real source of stress, in her life. Her stressed reactions to Margaret probably mirror mine, but I'm able to divorce myself from them more than Maddie is. One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more low key around Maddie, but kid number one has something to say about that since Maddie can't seem to distinguish my barking at Margaret from my barking at her. Hopefully, Margaret will become less fussy in the next month or so, and Maddie will recuperate so that everyone will be happy when she comes home. But then, there's always Teddy and his coming fussy stage looming on the horizon.

Some photos:

A belated January post

My goodness, has it really been two weeks since I last posted something on this blog? The blogging muse seems to come and go for me, and over the last few weeks, she appears to have taken a hiatus.

And even now, do I have any "insights" into parenting? Or "funny" stories about what's been happening in our household? Not really. I do, however, have a bunch of pictures which is what most readers of this blog are looking for anyway. And here they are....

For those of you our there who simply must have hard copies of these photos, I refer you to my earlier post about getting pictures from Flickr.

What other news is there to report? Well, the CT grandparents have been in town for the last week and a half, helping us out with Teddy since Abby has gone back to work. The whole transition has gone much more smoothly than I would've expected, but that's probably due to the grandparent's presence more than anything else. As Abby says, once both of the kids are in daycare and I'm picking them up after work: "I worry about everyone's sanity." We'll see.

Margaret is a fusser. I don't think that there's a person in the world who would debate that characterization. Except, perhaps, the teachers at her daycare who inevitably tell us that she's such a little sweetheart. My suspicion is that this has something to do with "power plays" that she's working out in her little head.

She has reached the point where her communication swings between being the sweetest little kid ever and the biggest fussy pain in the arse. There's not much middle ground and, honestly, it's pretty darn annoying. You don't have to scream when you want a glass of milk, I try to tell her. And every little obstacle does not require an eruption. Which is especially problematic given the frequency at which little obstacles appear in her life. I want to ride on the tricycle. No, I want to push it. No, I want Papa to push it while carrying me. Each transition accompanied by a petulant whine at best or wail at worst.

How is Maddie taking this? Not well at all. Her doggie Prozac didn't seem to do the trick. In fact, she's probably worse than ever. When Margaret isn't around, Maddie is a pretty normal, albeit still somewhat high-strung and excitable. But toss Margaret into the mix, and Maddie starts to shake uncontrollably. It's really troubling. Maddie's problem is that she takes it all too personally, not realizing that Margaret's eruptions are temporary and almost always followed by a happy spell. Of course, the hapy spell doesn't always happen at which point Papa begins to shake uncontrollably. It's funny how one develops the "parent voice," something that I've observed in my sister. When Margaret fusses enough in her highchair, for example, I'll finally say "Ok Margaret, knock it off" in a stern voice. Margaret will stop and consider the situation. Depending on her mood, she may or may not actually knock it off. But the "parent voice" conveys the message that I'm (we're) not happy.

In any event, Maddie is still having serious problems adjusting to Margaret's fussiness. We're not sure what we'll do at this point, but we may send her off to the CT homestead with the grandparents for a few months to give her a break for a while. It's very sad. Margaret doesn't understand the ramifications of her actions, but I'm sure that if she did, she wouldn't want Maddie to leave. But that may end up happening for a while (and if it does, I'll be sure to bring this up sometime later in Margaret's life as an example of the sacrifices that we've made for her - kidding.)

As for Teddy, he's gone through a lot of changes too. Really bulked up. He no longer looks like a newborn, rather he looks like an infant. He's smiling and interacting with us a lot more than he was. And he's going through that stage where he's trying to get his extremeties under control. Flailing around with his arms, occasionally grabbing onto something. And, then, sometimes, getting that to his mouth. A series of accomplishments from his point of view, I would think.

Back at home after Xmas

We've made it back home after another grueling roadtrip. Actually, the trip back from CT wasn't quite as bad as the trip up since Teddy was more cooperative. He did cry from Baltimore to DC, right around the time that we couldn't justify a stop, and Margaret chimed in to get the stereo sound going, but both of them slept for a good part of the trip.

We have tons of photos. While I'm not terribly inclined to organize them too much, here is a basic breakdown.

Margaret showing off her outfit on Xmas Eve. (She was in a pretty fussy mood, so Dad used all of his powers to keep her happy.)

Opening presents on Xmas Day. Margaret had lots of fun with all of the commotion, although she didn't really seem to understand the significance of presents and lost interest after an hour or so.

But she did get to partake of peppermint stick ice cream, an Xmas tradition in the CT household.

Of course, we can't forget about Teddy who, just when it seemed that he wasn't getting enough attention, would yelp and cry to bring things back around to him.

And last, a movie of Margaret struggling with modern communications technology. As if her communication skills weren't handicapped enough as it is, she's also got this silly phone to deal with.

Xmas Eve in CT

We made it to CT on Saturday after a 10 hour trip that, pre-kids, would've taken somewhere between 6 and 7 hours. Given our recent experience during our trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, that time loss was to be expected. But we had the misfortune of experiencing more traffic delays in conjunction with fussiness which was very pleasant. Teddy, in particular, showed some real skill in being able to sustain a full wail.

Margaret had a grand time yesterday unpacking boxes and putting presents under the tree. She has no idea what the presents actually are as she showed no interest in unwrapping them. Once that connection is made, we won't be able to give her freedom to bring the presents out and probably won't be able to leave them around in her presence at all. But boy did she have fun with all the colorful presents! She'd trundle back to a bedroom saying "More" and "Oh boy!" only to reappear with another present that she'd toss under the tree (anything fragile there? who knows) before running back for more.

More Maddie news

Today, I got a call from the vet who told me that something had come back positive in Maddie's heartworm test. My immediate thought was that she had heartworms which is very, very bad since the medicine to treat that condition is one of those that tries to kill the heartworms without killing the dog. But it turns out that she tested positive for Lyme disease. That doesn't mean that she has Lyme disease, but that she has evidence of the nasty little critters in her blood. I did pluck a few ticks off of her over the summer, so I suppose that's not inconceivable. Luckily, it doesn't sound like Lyme disease is a big deal in dogs, unlike with people. The disease can be similarly difficult to diagnose, but the vet's opinion was that it was worth putting her on a round of antibiotics given this positive test rather than doing additional, more accurate tests. Those antibiotics tend to clear up the disease in dogs (again, unlike for people) over a few weeks.

This may explain why Maddie has seemed a bit stiff lately. I chalked that stiffness up to her advancing age, but I suppose that it could be Lyme disease although she hasn't shown any of the severe symptoms associated with the disease (e.g. extreme lameness.) Hopefully, this treatment will help her recover some of her verve and vigor. Not that she's really lost it since she still loves to play ball (although we don't play frisbee anymore, leaving that pastime to poseurs at the dog park who Maddie would've put to shame in her prime.) But she has been taking more time going up the stairs and jumping into the car and onto the bed.

As for the kids, Teddy has started to display a disturbing tendency to cry inconsolably right around the time that I get home from work and start cooking dinner. We'll see if it continues at which point my dedicated readers can expect a full deconstruction of this behavior.

A big day!

A friend of mine was in town today to give a presentation at work. When he asked how the kids were, I mentioned how one of Margaret's first words was "No." But she also didn't quite understand how to use it. "Margaret do you want a bath?" "No." Ok, that's reasonable. But then "Margaret do you want a cookie?" "No." So it wasn't quite clear that she understood what she meant.

Lately, her No's have gotten quite a bit more emphatic. One of the key times that this arises has been when she has a dirty diaper. "Margaret, are you stinky?" we ask. "No" is the inevitable response. "Do you need to go potty?" we ask thinking that might encourage an interest in the potty. "No." (She will sometimes declare that she's stinky, but when we ask her, will then deny it.)

But today, we got a new response for the first time. "Margaret, are you stinky?" I asked. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she considered the question. Finally, she responded "Yessss." Then, "Did you go potty?" "Yessss." "Do you need to go potty?" "Yesss." I had to capture this momentous event for posterity, so see the following video (in which I also prompt her to announce herself as a menance.) And, at the end of the video, I get a clear admission that she's "stinky."

But at the end of the day, I'm not quite sure that she understands the proper use of the word yes since later on I asked "Do you want to read another book?" "Yesssss." Reasonable. "Do you want to get in bed?" That certainly warrants a No, but I got a "Yessss."

Kid and dog

I bashed DC pretty hard in my last post. But someone out there managed to beat even my currently low expectations. While taking Maddie and Margaret for a walk this morning (to let Abby sleep), we passed a house that had a nativity scene set up in their lower stairwell. With the exception of the baby Jesus. According to the note in the nativity scene, someone had stolen him. Lovely. Regardless of your religious inclinations, that's screwed up.

But on the upside, the Prozac for dogs already seems to be working for Maddie since she's doing a better job of dealing with the kids' fussing. She spent the entire day today with us on the main floor, although she slept for a lot of that time. For happier times, see the photos above of Maddie and Thing 1. As for Maddie in action, check out the following:

One of those days

Today was just difficult. Why don't we start at the end and work our way backwards...

The people two doors down invited us, kids and all, to their holiday party. We haven't gotten to know our neighbors very well since our time is dominated by other concerns (known as Thing 1 and Thing 2), so we were pleased to be invited and were excited to get to know them better. Since I didn't shave this morning because I decided to take the day off from work, I shaved just before we were going to leave. And managed to give myself an odd little nick on the nose (or as Margaret would call it, Noe-sss) which bled profusely and just wouldn't stop (a common occurrence with shaving wounds, but this was severe even though the cut itself wasn't.) Completely annoying - I couldn't go over to the party with blood dripping off my nose. Conveniently, Teddy decided to scream. So there I was running around with tissue paper attached to my nose while Teddy screamed, Abby tried to get ready to go, and Margaret messed around looking to get into trouble. In the end, I stayed home with a screaming Teddy and bloody nose while Margaret and Abby went to the party for 20 minutes or so, but boy was that a great end to the day.

Then earlier in the day, an "underemployed" friend of ours parked his car in our garage. His car isn't properly registered or inspected, so he needed some place to park it where the traffic cops wouldn't have access to it. In a fit of silly generosity, I offered to let him use our garage a few weeks ago, but he didn't take us up on it at the time, so we thought it might pass. But then he called up today and asked if the offer was still open. I told him that it had to be out by early January when Abby goes back to work so she won't have to look for parking at night when coming home, and he agreed, but it's still a pain to lose use of our garage for a few weeks, especially since the garage is great for loading the kids. This is one of those times when you ask yourself why you decided to be so generous.

Just before he called, I paid a visit to the DMV to get our car registration renewed. The DC DMV is a place unlike any other for the uniform (and wholly predictable) unpleasantness of the experience of going there. This time, the primary difficulty was that I had to document our new address in addition to getting the registration renewed. Although I took a stack of papers to try to verify our new address, I apparently didn't have the key document to show that we lived where we live. For example, our lease wasn't signed by our landlord since she happens to live in Italy. So that didn't count, although I could've "signed" her name to the document and they never would've known. Alternatively, I could've kept all of the registration listed for our old address and it wouldn't have mattered. But try to be an upstanding citizen and keep everything current and what happens? You get turned away by surly employees at the DC DMV. But I should have expected that outcome since it took four trips to the DMV to register our car the first time around. As Richard, our friend whose car is in our garage, said when I told him about what happened, "Of course you didn't have the right documents. What did you expect?"

Sometimes this city just gets annoying. A few days ago, Abby had to pick up a package from the post office that required a signature, but was addressed to Margaret. Now the signature verification requirement is a good idea in general since, damn this city, packages seem to disappear from our front porch. For example, the neighbors who were throwing the party tonight apparently dropped off a gift for Teddy shortly after he was born. Very nice of them, but we didn't get it (and we feel very bad for them that that happened.) Instead, someone else is using a towel with a monogram "Theodore." I hope they're enjoying it. And that they think about little Teddy every time they use it.

But back to the post office story, it seems that Abby could not pick up the package since she wasn't actually Margaret. "But she's my daughter and, in any case, she's only 1 1/2 years old so she couldn't sign her name anyway," Abby tried to point out. "But she's not you," was the response. "Where is she?" "In daycare!" The woman that Abby was dealing with almost sent the package back to the sender before a more reasonable USPS employee stepped in to sort things out. In hindsight, Abby should have just claimed that the kid in the Baby Bjorn was Margaret since who was going to check? Again, all of this just encourages us to lie. (My friends who live in Northern Virginia like to point out that government services are much more pleasant and efficient there than they are in DC. And no one ever steals a package off your front porch.)

Returning to events of the current day, this morning, Maddie and I visited the vet for a check-up. A few things have been going on in Maddie's life that have given us cause for concern. First, she gets very nervous when the kids cry, something that I've been meaning to write about for a while. This is problematic since, to be honest, the kids tend to cry and fuss a lot. Which is unpleasant for everyone, but especially, it seems, for Maddie. It's gotten to the point where Maddie doesn't seem to like to hang out with the rest of us and, when she does, will creep away when the inevitable crying starts. I actually thought about sending Maddie to get some R&R (relatively speaking) with the relatives in Philly for a few weeks. They're past the extreme fussing stage, so I thought that she might enjoy getting away from the "menace" known as Margaret (and, to a lesser extent, Teddy.)

The second development is that Maddie's vision has been deteriorating a bit. Nothing serious, but it's noticeable, especially when we play ball in the evening at the park. She has more trouble picking up the ball from a distance, and we invariably lose at least one ball since when she can't find it in the dark, neither can I. And when Abby is walking to meet us in the park and I ask "Where's Abby?," it takes Maddie a while to pick her up whereas, in the past, she would have taken off like a shot directly towards Abby (often before I even asked.)

I wanted to ask the vet if he had any suggestions about how to deal with these problems. For the first, he suggested that we try "Reconcile" which is basically Prozac for dogs and is primarily used to treat separation anxiety, although as he pointed out, it can be helpful for any type of anxiety. Now, I'm not too keen on dosing my dog with drugs just as I'm not a big fan of dosing people with drugs to deal with these types of problems. But it's gotten so depressing to watch Maddie that I figured we'd give it a shot for a month or so just to see if it helps.

Sigh. One of the things about Maddie is that when she and I go for walks alone in the evening, she's just like the puppy that she was years ago, prancing along and jumping up on things while inviting me to play. But toss Margaret into the mix (and to a lesser extent, Teddy) and Maddie becomes a much more tentative and obviously unhappy dog. Perhaps the real solution is to send Margaret to the Philly relatives for a few weeks so that Maddie can get some real R&R.

For the vision issues, the vet checked her eyes and said that he thinks that she's suffering from Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA). This is an untreatable genetic condition that, for dogs of Maddie's age, leads to progressive deterioration of vision with the end result of blindness. This is a very depressing diagnosis although as the link above describes, dogs with this condition don't experience physical pain and don't experience the same psychic trauma that people do when faced with a similar condition especially since the progression of the condition is sufficiently slow that the dog learns to adapt to it over time.

However, there is still a lot of uncertainty associated with this diagnosis. First, does she actually have PRA? Many of the websites that I found suggest that it's very rare in Border Collies and can often be misdiagnosed (which still leaves open the issue of what might be wrong with her vision and how that condition might proceed.) Second, how fast will it progress? Some resources suggest that it can proceed so slowly that things don't get much worse at all or, at least, the dog won't outlive the progression of the condition. To get more info about these issues, we might consult a pet opthamologist. Does she have PRA and, if not, what eye problems is she experiencing? How far along is she in the process and how might things proceed and at what rate?

In any case, any eye problems don't seem to be affecting Maddie very much at this point except for the nighttime rounds of ball. Her main issue at this point is how to deal with the kids, so we'll see if the doggie Prozac helps out on that front. And regardless of how things go with her vision, we'll deal with them. I was lucky that the first website that I read about the condition was the one listed above since that site has some good advice about how to deal with deterioration in vision of dogs, but if anyone wants to get us a depressing, but potentially useful book for Xmas, you could consider the one cited on that page. At the end of the day, this might turn out to be a boon for Maddie since the dog with eye problems is likely to get more sympathy than the petulant little kid.

Our day began with another depressing event. On our way back from buying diapers and Xmas tree lights at CVS (it seems that our Xmas tree lights only last a year and, lord knows, diapers don't last very long in our household), Abby spotted an elderly woman on her patio outside of her house. She had fallen and appeared to be completely disoriented. I went to help her, asking her whether she needed an ambulance. She wanted to get back into her house, but I wasn't strong enough to pick her up myself. We got a contractor from across the street to help me, and together we managed to get her inside the house. We asked whether she had someone to call or needed us to call someone, but she didn't want us to do so. She was still disoriented, but was thankful for our help and didn't seem to want any more. And to top it all off, I got a whiff of wine which the contractor apparently got in a greater dose. A completely troubling situation - we may check in on her tomorrow to see if she's ok and to make sure that she's not suffering from dementia or something like that.

The start of what turned out to be a very interesting day.

Because your Daddy loves you

We have a very standard routine when putting Margaret to bed. Following dinner, which invariably involves some sort of crisis when Margaret objects to the food that she's been given (often without trying it - "But I know you like peas! You can't live on raisins alone!"), we head upstairs, generally for a bath. As my previous post discussed, baths are not as traumatic as they once were. After the bath, we put on our PJs, a new word in Margaret's vocabulary, and then we read books. Lots and lots of books. As the actual reader of these books, one becomes quite the connoisseur of children's literature, as I think I've mentioned before. Good books have a number of characteristics.

First, a good rhythm. One of the recent books from the library that I really enjoyed was Hippos Go Berserk by one of the stalwarts of children's lit, Sandra Boynton. Not only does that book involve one of Margaret's favorite animals (Bippos!!), but it has a great rhyming rhythm. First page - "One hippo all alone." Second page - "Calls two hippos on the phone." Third page - "Three hippos at the door." Fourth page - "Bring along another four." And so on until the hippos all go berserk in a party that's more wild than any I remember from college. After which, the hippos start leaving and the cadence of the book changes. Still rhyming and rhythmic, but very different from the initial arrival of the hippos. Brilliant. I can see why the author is such a star among the kiddie set. (In my opinion, Abby could never quite get the cadence of this book, a problem that is present for lots of other books. Of course, such editorial comments only ensure that I'll be reading lots more kiddie books in the future. Whoops. But at least I'll read them right!)

The second key characteristic of a good book is one that induces responses from Margaret. For example, various Berenstain Bears books have facial expressions that Margaret likes to mimic. Or she'll point out characters such as Peter in "A Snowy Day" or the Mamas who show up in various texts. My parents brought us a whole series of books that were a hit in this respect entitled "Can You?" which involve photos of animals engaged in certain behavior along with questions like "Can You?" . . . "Stick out your tongue." Margaret likes the animals (another quality of a good book), but also likes to mimic them.

After working through a number of these books each night (I believe that I typically read Margaret more of them than Abby does - darnit another editorial comment that will come back to bite me - where's the "censor" button on these computers?), Margaret and I conclude with a book that someone out there gave us at some point: "Because your Daddy loves you." Now, this isn't a great rhyming book, and the pictures aren't that great. But there are drawings of a little girl and her Daddy which lead Margaret to point at the little girl and then herself when asked "Where's the little girl?" and to point at the Daddy and then me when asked "Where's the Daddy?" (which always gets a big bearhug from me after she does so.) What's really interesting about this book is the message that it's clearly sending to the Daddies of the world:

When you stop for ice cream on the way home and your cone
makes a big gooey mess, your daddy could say,
Now look what you've done!
But he doesn't.

He finds a paper napkin and he gets it wet at the drinking fountain.
He wipes off your mouth, then both of your
hands - one sticky finger at a time.

Basically, this is a book to prevent "child abuse," broadly defined. Of course I can't yell at Margaret after reading this book even if she's tearing up the house. Because her Daddy loves her. (I've been teaching her to say "menace" so that when I ask her "Margaret, what are you?" she'll reply "menace." She doesn't quite have it down yet.)

But the end is the best part. The Daddy carries the girl up to bed:

And then your daddy could say,
See you tomorrow,
or
Sleep tight,
or
Sweet dreams.
But he doesn't.
He says,
"I love you."

It's sickeningly sweet, but when we get to that last line, Margaret, knowing what's coming, "says" it too me, in her own garbled way. A few hugs and then she's in bed.