!!!

2:30 p.m
After two days of belly laffs, eye-injury near-misses and some really agonized wailing, I set the new kid into the swing that hangs from our ceiling, put on "Jessica" by the Allman Brothers and just start dancing so happy. It's very Mary Poppins but I actually think I feel my heart start to soar.
I like what fatherhood does to me.

11:30 pm, late-breaking update:
Mary Poppins has left the building. Now it's more like the Blair Witch Project around here. V. screams and wails, in abject terror, confusion and sorrow. For instance: "AAAAAIIEEEEEE!!"
She fell asleep no problem, snoozed peacefully for several hours, then woke up in this unfamiliar bed, surrounded by weird strange smells and people she doesn't know. It's dark in here. Where the fuck is her mama?
Anette and I cower in bed for the first few minutes, then my wife hauls V. into our bed. More terror, more howling. Oh, the look on her little face.
Anette tells me to get the hell out of there and I flee out here to the ballroom. I'm laying on the couch, my heart going 90 MPH. I try to imagine what V. is going through, what her life has been like: losing her bio-mother, now losing her first foster mom, so much uncertainty, so much fear. And as I think of how much trouble she has and what V. must deal with, I start to feel calmer. Like a light goes on, and I think, 'Okay, that's the deal. That's our work.' Okay.

12:30 a.m.
Vaguely, I hear Anette get up and ping around in the kitchen for a minute.
'Of course, she's making the kid a bottle!'
Then...silence.