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A baby's house

Willow-proofing is a continuous, life-altering process.
I think she's covered every inch of this house, going places I never knew existed.
She's pulled up on, knocked over and tugged on chairs, cords, doors, knobs, lamps, pictures, books, coats, blankets, magazines, packages, boxes. Everything under the January sun, it seems. She's falling and tumbling and pulling small avalanches onto herself.
Most times she cries. Sometimes she snorts and crawls off offended. Other times she laughs. Every time she repeats the offending activity, sometimes immediately, other times eventually.
The house is ever-changing. Cherish and I don't recognize our house.
We've installed safety latches, outlet covers and furniture bumpers. I've even draped comforters over our coffee tables to soften the impact of little heads on hard surfaces.
I've moved lamps. I've relocated books. I've hidden furniture. I've thrown up unsightly obstacles to keep our little adventurer from bad places.
This is a baby's house now, not a couple's.
And so a time or two Cherish and I have reminisced about the olden days (mere months ago) when this was our house. And we've talked rosily about those days when the kids will have left us in our empty nest, one we can reclaim and straighten up.
But I don't know.
The house that we have, and the mess that it possesses, seems to have a warmth that wasn't there before. Cherish noticed it the other night when she returned from work to a scattershot living room.
"It seems warmer in here, doesn't it?"
Yes, it does.
Maybe it's just the January masquerading as March. Maybe it's the rose-tinged glasses of new parents.
Or maybe it's the warmth of family or of a home that's settling in for the journey ahead.
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