All Together Now

When … you’re the only parent in the house / and you went to bed late, listening to the sounds of tens of thousands of football fans reenacting “Dude, Where’s My Car?” outside your windows / and the 3-year-old woke screaming at 0332, asking to come upstairs and share your bed, to which you blearily acquiesced / and now it’s 0537 / and the 6-month-old is now fussing every 10 minutes: a frequency that says that simply re-offering her pacifier will no longer do / and you’re contemplating leaving your warm bed and going downstairs to face the glaring refrigerator lights in order to warm a bottle of milk / and just then you hear one of the cats yakking up something wet somewhere in your darkened bedroom, most likely between you and the stairs / … That’s Amore!