The following essay was written by Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks.

Ah, love. I remember what “love” used to mean. Back in the olden days, about 2 years B.C. (“Before Child”), for my husband and I “love” used to mean spending all day in bed. Getting drunk on a bottle of port in front of a roaring fire late into the evening. Leaping around the room and dancing naked and to “The Humpty Dance” blaring from stereo speakers in the middle of the night (DO. NOT. ASK.) Love was all about spontaneity. And romance. And just-the-two-of-us.

Then Alex came.

Our daughter looking at either of us, and announcing “No like it,” while spitting masticated God-knows-what into our hands. And we have no problem accepting it. -

Alex, stalling finishing her dinner, by shrieking “MORE SQUEEZE!!!” at either of us, in the hope that by us giving her a hug (“squeeze”), we’ll forget that we’re in the process of making her eat all her peas. -

The pitter-patter of tiny feet coming into our room in the middle of the night, asking to crawl into bed with us. -

Discovering those same feet aren’t actually as tiny as previously thought, since the body attached to those feet has decided to sleep perpendicularly to the rest of people sleeping in said bed, and those feet are actually now permanently embedded in my cheekbone. -

My husband and I touching ankles beneath said perpendicular sleeping form lying between us, and calling such contact “intimacy.” -

Stolen kisses and gropes while the kid is watching “Madagascar.” -

My husband and I sharing a startled smile at a new phrase or word that comes out of our daughter’s mouth, like “WOW! LOOK AT THAT!” or “Mummy, come here NOW!” or, my personal favourite, “Daddy is a goober.” -

Alex rolling over in the middle of the night and murmuring “I lahve you, Mummy. I lahve you, Daddy,” before dropping back off to sleep.