Tonight Lucy moved her desk away from the wall so she could sit on one side of it, and Milo could sit opposite her. For a job interview. Apparently Lucy Enterprises is seeking some dynamic small people for exciting opportunities in playing, building and being bossed around. She took notes on her clipboard.

Lucy: “Buzzy, do you want to be a big-Lego builder?”

Milo: “Yeah.”

Lucy: “Tell me why you think you would be good at it.”

Milo: “Zub zib bah bah. Uh oh bye bye, guys guys guys!”

Lucy: “That’s interesting.”

The interview continued for a few more minutes, and though I moved to the kitchen where I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, it sounded like a nice conversation — which is what a good job interview should be, right? Even the part where Milo made monkey noises. When I listened back in more closely, the interview was wrapping up.

Lucy: “Will you let us know when you decide?

Milo: “Yeah.”

Ed. note: Been a long time, people, but it’s a sappy alert: apologies in advance.

Love. It’s THE stuff of song. Religion (and I’d consider this a sub-category of love) and politics/protest hold second and third place to love. There’s also loss and despair, but again: sub-categories of love. There are train songs and fight songs and death songs. So many stories, so many themes.

But the greatest of these is love. The teenage kind, the unrequited kind, the illicit kind. The filial, the desperate, the forbidden, the broken.

But what about quotidian love? You know, the laundry and dishes and diapers and we’re-doing-okay kind of love? There are songs, I know.  It’s unfair to call this a totally neglected category. I just wish I could write one, or find one readily enough — a song about love’s lesser worries.

Were we just mad about the trash?

Would you just hold my hand?

Thank you for folding the laundry.

Have I told you all my stories yet?

Can we be apart enough for me to write some new ones?

Will you be bored if we aren’t?

Did we fight about the fight about piano?

I think you won. Oh well.

Thank you for finding my keys for the 437^th time.

Should I know you better?

Will you always hold my hand?

I forgive you 10 times before you know I’m mad. You’re welcome.

I know you forgive me 27. Thank you.

This is a little like war. Only it’s love. With us and little people.

You are the best person I know. And I know more than enough to know.

We deserve a song.

“DAD, GET MILO OUT OF HERE. I AM ON THE POT. I MEAN IT, GET HIM OUT OF HERE.”

This from the primary reason neither of us has used the bathroom in private since 2005? That’s the pot calling the kettle…pot.

While father and daughter are watching American Idol (with confidence and gravity): “Dad. I know and I always will know that I am GOING to be on American Idol.”

Fang. Jaws. Animal. All nicknames for that kid: the Biter.

Milo.

He’s been acting out his 18-to-24-month aggression by leaving angry, tooth-indented rings in the flesh of his classmates. It’s a problem, obviously. But what’s funny is that his teachers are having a bit of hard time correcting his behavior…because he’s so damn cute. “That face,” they tell me. This week he was kicked out of graduated from the younger toddler afternoon classroom into the older toddler room, because the girls with the little kids were entirely too charmed by him to do anything about the biting. When I picked him up last Thursday, I was met at the door by Micah, who had a giant bite-mark on his cheek (Milo) and Charlie, sporting a dental imprint on his arm (Milo). Fang, for his part, hugged and kissed both his friends/victims as I opened the door, then he ran down the hall, leaving me with my apologies to the parents of the bitees.  Milo: a lover and a biter. One has to wonder if this is what it will be like when I bail him out of jail.