Brin is holding her shimmering unicorn toy. With a wistful look on her face, she tells me, “I was dreaming of a dream.”

Brin tells me about the girl at the library last week who gave her a drawing. “She gave it to me!”

“Oh, yeah! That’s right, Brin. What was her name, again?”

“Screech.”

I shave my face with an electric razor over the sink so it will catch all the stubble. As I finish up and start washing it down the sink, Brin comes up to the sink and says, “Daddy, I will help you clean your fur.”

Brin lets me know that she crushed a roly-poly while she was playing with it. I ask, “Was it ok?” She says, “Well, it was alive, but den…” (struggling for the right word) “it was no more alive-ing.”

Micah starts to cry because he’s hungry. In a very calming voice, Brin tells him, “It’s ok. There’s no monsters in here, bud.”

Brin and I are wrestling. When I nibble on her hand, she recoils and says, “That’s not a lunch! That’s just my hand.”