Snow Globes

We're in the living room. I'm sitting on the landing at the bottom of the stairs and Sophie is about 5 feet away from me playing underneath one of the end tables. The front door is open and a summer rain is gently pelting the glass door. As usual, I'm composing a post in my head.

My rambling thoughts: Having a child is nice. You have someone that automatically loves you. But. It's not really automatic. It requires enormous amounts of time and work to help this little life grow and develop. In truth, it is months before you get any reaction from the child and even longer before you really start to feel some reciprocation of feelings. At 10 months, I get glimpses of what she'll be like as she grows up, but I really have no idea what our relationship will be like. Will we be close? Will we fight a lot? Will she look and sound like me or more like her daddy? If we have another child, will she get along well with him or her? Like many mothers and daughters throughout time, we will likely have a few rough years in there where she is finding her voice. How will I deal with that? Do I have it in me to be patient and understanding but firm? How will I take it when she goes through her "daddy is the most wonderful person in the world" phase? Right now, my little girl is a snow globe of questions, swirling around. In time, each will settle to the bottom, but there will always be more, still floating around her. Waiting. The answers yet to come. That's a good name for the post, "Snow Globes," suitably esoteric yet appropriate. I feel like sometimes I'm too literal, that there's no mystery. I'll probably need to cull down that middle part. The questions get a bit rambling. Where am I going with this post, is this just another one where I talk about how great it is to be a moth...

Boom. That's when the 6 foot tall metal lamp next to the table Sophie had been playing under comes crashing down right on my head. Through the blinding pain, I see my darling baby girl with her hand still on the base of the lamp. The only question swirling around now is how big the lump on my head is going to be.