Oh yes, I'm still here.

There is simply too much to say about the past few months, so I'm going to postpone it a little longer.  Instead, I'd like to share this lovely little story:

I woke up at 4 am this morning and started to pack up my kitchen (we are moving this week).  I heard little feet on the stairs and thought, "What on earth...?"  It was Angela.  But when I went to her, she was obviously deeply upset.  I scooped her up and took her back to her bed and cuddled up beside her.

"Did you have a bad dream?"
"Yeah.  I dreamt that I drowned in the duck pond."
"Oh, that's a very scary dream!"
* lots of snuggles *
"I dreamt that you drove into the duck pond and I drowned.  And when I woke up I was holding my breath."
"Oh, honey..."
"Before that the dream was cool.  Those black ducks were as big as I was, and they were running next to the car, trying to fly south for the winter."
"Well, Angela, did you know that the duck pond is actually very shallow?  If you stood up to it, the water would probably only come up to here on you" * pointing to her abdomen *.
"I didn't know that!"
* silence while she took this in *
"Should we wake up Elizabeth?"
"No, honey, it's only 4 in the morning."
"Oh!"
"Are you ready to go back to sleep?"
"Yes!"
"What about your bad dream?"
"If I have another bad dream, then I'll just remember that the water isn't very deep, and then I'll roll my window down and pretend that the black ducks are my pets, and they'll fly in through the windows and over my head, like at the bird show!"

After that, she was downright anxious to sleep again, and shooed me away so she could get to it.

I love that girl.  I have a lot to learn from her.