Already Leta has become a clothes snob. Yesterday morning while I was on the phone with her father who was sitting in a hotel room in rural Kentucky over 2000 miles away, the heavenly miracle of our child’s healthy lungs allowed him to witness her frustration with a pink shirt she has worn at least two dozen times before. It’s a cute little Polo-style shirt with a collar and some buttons, and once I had pulled it over her head she began yanking at the collar and the top half of her body burst into flames. And then she fell over and writhed. There was much writhing. And clawing at the floor until her hands started to bleed.

“What are you doing to her?” he asked.

“I have four elephants tied to each of her limbs and they are all walking in separate directions.”

“No, seriously, what’s going on?”

“The collar of her shirt is eating her face, I guess.”

Right then I put him on speaker phone so that I could put it down, retrieve another shirt, and save the remaining flesh on the back of Leta’s head. The moment the other collar-less shirt was on her torso she sighed an audible, “AHHHHHHH.”

Jon let out a small, knowing giggle, not a big one though because he knows I’m doing this alone all week. “Did you change her shirt?”

“No, I just told the elephants to stop and take a five-minute smoke break. They’ll be right back.”