A Quiet House

I am sitting in Vancouver, and a quiet house surrounds me. Lukey is asleep and Eric and the girls are in Point Roberts. I came home (almost) by myself tonight, after the Canucks game (go Canucks, go) because I have to go out to UBC tomorrow morning to participate in a study and I had to submit an article I just finished for a trade publication. Seems weirdly silent here. The girls are quiet when they are sleeping, but somehow even their silence sort of fills the place. Lukey is breathing away here, but his little breaths don't seem to have the same volume or girth.

Poor wee Finny had a mini-breakdown tonight before bed. She was up pretty late, so was a tad fragile. But as my mum pointed out, sometimes it is easy to forget that she is still so little. Sure, her speech is fairly ridiculous (if you haven't heard it you will think I am being cruel but you'll just have to take my word for it). But really, she is a very together toddler. In fact, that word toddler just feels stupid for her.

Her night was capped of by breaking one of my new-ish shoes. It wasn't a big deal and it wasn't even her fault, but she snapped. She collapsed into my mum's arms and proclaimed that it was a "Dammit day!", followed by a bunch of dammits. Wow. Not really what you want coming out of a two year old's mouth, but fairly descriptive. She was bummed. She was sharing that emotion with all of us. You know what? Fair enough. There will be plenty of time tomorrow to explain that we don't really want her saying that (particularly at the top of her lungs...say, in a supermarket, where I will incur death glares from judgmental grown-ups). In the meantime, she was having a Dammit moment. Alright little Finny, alright.

Sleep it off, kiddo.