Day 72

Common milkweed pod, probably the only one left in the entire meadow!  I love these plants, throughout the year they fascinate me in their various stages.

Molly and I ran 2.2 miles today, in 27 minutes, which is a bit faster than yesterday, I think.  I tried really hard to run fast, counting breaths when I was nearly running out of them, funny how it helps to count in and out, if I don't count then my lungs panic and can't breathe.  Sometimes I almost think of breathing as a voluntary action, unlike most human beings, for whom it is involuntary.  Perhaps I should have been an aquatic mammal, a whale. 

Because I have had asthma all my life, I am hyper-aware of how it all works inside my chest, the little bronchial muscles strangling the airways for some bizarre allergic reason.  Some scientists believe that asthma is an evolutionary development, that the upper airways perceive a threat and try to protect the more vulnerable lungs.  Which doesn't really make sense, because unless you can reverse the process by taking medication, you will probably die, which is not much of an evolutionary step forward.

Last night when I got into bed, Tim was already fast asleep, and as I snuggled up next to him to get warm, he turned over and started tapping my cheeks, and my head, and then my neck, which tickled.  (I am very ticklish, and suffered greatly from having an older brother who was much stronger than I was and tickled me mercilessly.)  So I laughed and laughed, and then he did it some more, and laughter filled our bed.  We both fell asleep then, and in the morning he told me that he had been dreaming, and wanted to tap on a table like you do when someone is late, and you mean, "Well, it's about time!"  He also said, "Another wife would have knocked my hand away and been angry with me!"  I'm glad I'm not another wife.

So here is a picture of my eldest child, my other beautiful girl.  Your first child is always the poor guinea-pig, you are so stupid as a parent, especially when you're such a young parent, and she has turned out really well considering!

When she was a baby I used to show everyone how perfect she was, telling them "Look at her little ears, like little shells, so beautiful!"  All my friends were students still, as I was, and thought I was quite barmy, a baby was the last thing on their minds!