The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I normally put the Queen Bee to bed at night. It's a simple process that normally requires about 30 minutes, however there have been nights where one or two components of that process have been array, resulting in a three to four hour father-daughter standoff.

One night last weekend, just as the Queen Bee was almost asleep (I thought she had already fallen asleep), I moved my face close to where she head rested and whispered, "Ich liebe dich." Her head bounced up, eyes open, lips puckered and she gave me a kiss right on the mouth.

Then she spent the next hour humming and giggling (I've been teaching her to hum The Phantom of the Opera when I put her down for naps; she's produced some pretty clever remixes). It's hard to be upset after that kiss, though. And it's hard to be upset with a girl who appreciates the opera...or maybe she appreciates phantoms? Either way, it's hard to be upset with her.

It's easy to be temperamental when you're living in the homes of family members (but we are in the process of getting a house of our own!), enduring reverse culture stress (not sure how long that's supposed to last), which makes said family members thrilled [cough, cough] to be around you and you, in turn, are coughed [thrill, thrill] to be around them. It's pretty easy to be cantankerous. At least, for me it is.

Things like this help.