The experience of parenthood

Today's my birthday, and it's been... a mixed one. After a lovely morning of excellent pancakes and bacon and a fun family photo session, we had a plumber out for what we thought would be a routine small leak repair that turned into... more. A lot more. And then, while we were sort of reeling from writing the checks for that, this happened:

and really, that's kind of everything, right there. The mess, the potties, the carpet that desperately needs replacing (and yet, somehow, managed yet again to escape the water damage so it won't actually *have* to be replaced with everything else...) - and a beautiful girl doing a lovely little dance to pretty music in the midst of all the chaos. She just goes around it all, over it all, through it all, and does what she does, with a giggle of delight.

The house will be better than it was before, we'll eventually get new carpet, and through everything we will always have this amazing family. I wouldn't give that up for the world.