Apropo of nothing, Brin looks up at me shortly after waking up and says, “Dad, your hair is long.”

I ask if that’s a good or bad thing.

“Bad! It looks bad.”

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.”