Juliette and the kids were home less than twenty-four hours after I took this picture. There was really no reason to be quite so emo.

"With a bed this big," I said, "we might as well be sleeping in different rooms. We won't even know the other person is even in it."

Maybe, though, with a bed this big I won't know she's not next to me, even while she's away.

It's important to take a moment now and then. Though, perhaps rinsing out the recycling isn't the most apt of moments.

Juliette and the kids are out of town for a week. I figured I might as well take the opportunity to try something different, photographically speaking.

The family and I went back home for Thanksgiving, and we stayed with my grandmother while we were there. This is a picture of her wall. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

My grandmother makes a prime rib every year for Christmas dinner, a tradition we've continued when we do the holidays at our own house. This year I was in charge of the roast; I made a bit of a mess in the prep.

Baby girl, why are you under the table? Are you hiding, out of fear or fun? Are you kneeling in prayer? Are you resting your head, weary from the exertions of being a one-year-old? Or perhaps you're taking cover from an earthquake or Mayan apocalypse.

Ah, I see. No, you're just getting your feet set so you can stand. You're on your way up.

While we were back home visiting last month, Juliette and I took the kids to Dennis the Menace Park, one of my favorite playgrounds when I was a kid. It had rained the night before, and little rivulets ran down a tall plastic slide in the middle of the park. It had been a metal slide when I was young, wide enough for three or four kids at once, and fast with two humps that ran down the side of the hill. I heard that someone decided that the metal got too hot in the summer, and replaced it out of worries over burned legs--something that somehow never seemed to happen to any of us, back when.

Jason, of course, didn't know any of that, and wouldn't have cared if he did. He only cared that the slide was slow, and that his bottom got wet.

I don't know exactly where or when Jason learned the word "fortress." It's possible that little boys are just born with it imprinted on their chromosomes.

I'm finally going through the pile of photos from my trip home last month. This one popped out at me immediately. I don't think it's right to say that I love my kids more when they're asleep, but there's certainly something compelling about seeing them so peaceful.