Today David lifted my shirt to kiss my back, my belly, or my shoulder no less than a dozen times. When I was standing, he would lift my pant legs and kiss my shins. He rolls on the floor with Carmen and kisses her knees, her hair, her elbow, her heel. At the Learning Tower, he leans toward her and kisses her shoulder while she squirms and giggles.

Carmen has been attempting a new word or a new sign every day. New words and signs include library, cooking, rock, pink, red, dump truck, daffodil, and, her longest one yet, pumpkin seed butter. “Pumpkin seed butter?” Couldn’t she try something easier?

And she is becoming quite expert at scolding the cat, waggling her finger in his face and saying something about biting (I’m assuming she’s telling him not to).

Can they stay this way forever, tender and generous and curious and funny and oh-so-independent . . . but still mine to soothe and hold whenever the mood strikes us?