“Welcome to parenting!”

“You okay there?” I inquired.

“I don’t know anymore.”

By day four, Lydia was no longer resentful.

She was donning a soiled hooded sweatshirt, locks in a weak knot, dehydrated grain material on her shoulder.

She was dragging herself through the residence like an apparition.

“Your aura’s really shifting, Lydia,” I remarked. “You smell like growth. And possibly spit-up. Definitely spit-up.”