Snapshot

One evening late last summer we returned home from a day out and about. While I was unloading the van with G's help, E hefted Q inside, while K and S answered a ringing phone to talk to daddy. I came roaring into the living room ready to feed what I was certain would be a starving, impatient baby, only to find this.

Our family has a history with this story. I first told the story to the kids' dad when we were freshmen in college. (On the phone--I was knee deep in an art project and he probably should have been studying.) I've calligraphied a passage from the book numerous times for friends and relatives in the midst of chemo. And now this. My heart is sort of in my throat every time I see this picture.

It's the first time E voluntarily read anything aloud to anyone, and she picked this book to read to this baby brother (who was born with very velvety ears that have been rapidly worn to real-ness) while their daddy was on speaker phone with the little girls in the same room.

And Q listened intently to the whole story.