She looked pretty thoughtful. “I guess I never really considered it before. But even when I was working for the magazine, I was freelance. And I write all my scripts for the Chart at home, I’m only at KCRW for a few hours a week. I don’t see why I couldn’t stay with her.”

“I think it’d be good if you did. Unless you think we should put her into preschool anyway, at least for a little while. Just to get used to that kind of setting,” I suggested. Personally I thought we should try it for a while, but I guess it didn’t really matter. I was trying to let Alice have executive say in all things educational, since she’d done research on it many times before and I knew close to nothing.

She didn’t get a chance to respond, mostly because Kallie started to cry. “Dammit, she must need her diaper changed,” Alice muttered. “Can you do it? Please?” she wheedled me. I heaved a sigh and stood up.

“I suppose,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

Alice gave me a smile as bright as the sun as my reward, and I picked the rather sticky baby up from her little seat thing that we took with us everywhere. “Would you mind cleaning her up a little?” she asked, and I laughed a little.

“Anything to get yourself out of it, huh?” I teased. She adopted an offended expression.

“I’m cleaning up here! See, I have to throw all this stuff away, and I have to take the chair back to the car…I’ll meet you at the swings?” she asked, turning away before I had a chance to respond.

I looked at Kallie, who was still pretty agitated, and sighed. “Come on, kiddo,” I said to her as carried her to the public bathroom. She stopped crying as soon as I’d changed her, and was happy and laughing at me as I tried to clean her up. “Yeah, laugh it up, messy,” I told her as tried to wipe all the ice cream residue from her. She didn’t seem to mind. And she laughed the whole time she was in the swing, and the whole car ride home, and I honestly don’t remember her crying again until at least a week or so later.