Blissed Out

What do you call a man who tells you, “Let’s face it, you’re gorgeous, but your daughter adds a certain dimension to your beauty?”

What do you call a man who takes your daughter to the pediatrician while you’re at work, who travels to see family out of town and comes back with a doll stroller that your child has been wanting for so long that she’s turned her booster seat into a “croller”? Who asks if he can take your camera to a two-year-old birthday party because this particular two-year-old is your daughter’s best friend? Who calls you to tell you to go ahead and finish that project at work if you need to because he’s free and he’ll pick up the girl from the babysitter?

I don’t know about you, but around here, we would love to call that man abba.

Despite having just come from the new Woody Allen movie last night (my first visit to the cinema in about 16 months), filled with nostalgia for my previous, carefree itinerate existence, I am pretty blissed out. My love has been in the States for three weeks now, and frankly, I can’t imagine life without him. And judging from my daughter’s complete disregard for me whenever he’s around, she can’t imagine it either.

It’s so nice to feel there is someone who can back you up, support you, take turns being the bad cop, and who still thinks you’re pretty even when you’ve not washed your hair all week, and who still thinks you’re smart even when you’re sleep deprived and can’t remember the name of your best friend. It’s nice to have someone who speaks Hebrew to my daughter and who davens.

So now we’re preparing for a second round of negotiations with Babydaddy, trying to get permission to move with baby to Israel. Hopefully the quaint guiding principals of the court system in DC, which favors a woman in a relationship to a woman alone, will add weight to my side (or, as my love puts it, our side) of the table.

This weekend we’ll be in Texas to meet my family. I’ve made my five brothers promise to behave.