Last night while waiting in the darkened study for her bath, N pondered life’s persistent questions:She was surprised to find that some were humorous:

We may be growing a book lover. At least, she loves staring at our bookshelf.

This morning (yes, another ice day) N and I had a serious conversation about torture. I asked her whether or not, if investigators know that a terrorist attack is going to happen and know that a particular person knows what exactly that attack will be, it is justifiable to torture that particular person in order to thwart the attack. (Actually, I think she finished the sentence for me…I never would have thought of using the word “thwart.”)

At the moment I was performing a routine cleaning up of her eyes, face, and ears, and she wasn’t too happy about it. “Torturist! Torturist!” she kept accusing me.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You know you’ll feel better in just a few moments, just like everyone would feel better after a justified waterboarding.”

That calmed her down, and so I wiped off the top of her head, too–which resulted in this super-cool hairdo, which is only sort of visible in this picture:

Today N visited with some of her cousins. They take care of her.

I also had fun, here with another N: