You know you are an old married couple when you discuss at length the lives and events and movements of the nest of baby robins and their fierce/protective parents in the eaves of your deck. Almost as exciting is finding a broad-tailed hawk feather (16 inches long!) on a walk through the woods. Ditto worrying about where the lake’s lone loon is – if the gulf oil spill hurt him (loons migrate to and from there!) I’ll be so sad. And the avidly shared bald eagle sightings. Okay, so those things are pretty great to have in one’s immediate yard or neighborhood, but I still feel a bit too … geriatric … when I realized this is something we discuss quite a lot. Where is the excitement, I ask you?

Steve overhead this exchange yesterday.
Ellen to Will: “I love you, Hammie.”
Will to Ellen: “I’m glad you are my sister, Ellie.”

My eyes are welling up just writing about it.

They are generally pretty big fans of each other, I have to say. Will pretty much doesn’t want to do anything without Ellen, even if they are things he really wants to do and Ellen can’t yet. And Ellie always goes to Will for comfort, especially when I’m being heartless by, say, not picking her up or making her do something she doesn’t want to do – like brushing her teeth, NOT an optional activity in my book – I think she has realized that Will is just as big a softie as Steve for her.

At night we talk about our favorite things that happened during the day, and for the most part, each of their favorite things involve activities they did together (swimming, blowing bubbles, etc).

Not that they don’t have their run-ins. I have a picture of Ellen sitting on Will and both are grinning g, which is pretty much the story of their relationship. Will gets the occasion push or hair pull in, but for the most part, its Ellen’s world and we all just live in it.

I feel a little deranged sometimes with how much I love kissing Ellen, and rubbing her back and neck, and touching her face. There is nothing about her physically that isn’t a pleasure to be near – her eyes and her dimple and her skin and her hugs and her laughter, etc. I will die a little when she doesn’t let me touch her anymore. Is there a medical term for being addicted to your daughter?