This is what I come home to...

Zedder munchin' out at dinner time...

Some days I'm just all used up by the time I get home. The degree of my frustration, stress, or disappointment doesn't even hit me until a half hour after I've left work, just in time for me to walk through the front door. So some days I step through the door looking a little worse for wear. Most days Zedder meets me at the door and instantly adds a little brightness to the day, but somedays even that greeting isn't enough to shake me into smiles. On those days I re-group in whatever manner I can -- a warm shower, a five minute couch collapse -- and then get busy being myself again. Fortunately on most days this little face is enough to shake loose whatever issues the day has stuck to me.


Grandma calls it an "oinge" but Zo just calls it gooood.

So, often enough to keep me sane, I walk through the door and see this little girl freaking out to see me and it eases me back into this better world I've got here on the edge of ice and sky with Michigan staring back at us from across a frozen lake. Then, in those moments, I love it here, and I forget about whatever it was that was eating at me, and I try not to get this tiny person too worked up before bedtime, even though it might be exactly what I want to do. We slip into our routines, and we discover new adventures and we sweep away another day like a bunch of weary curlers. Okay, maybe not curlers but the only other sweeping reference I could think of was a janitor and how sentimental does that sound? It doesn't.

This is the beautiful face that wipes all of the day's ugliness off of mine.