This week marks a couple of very happy milestones. Eve is officially a year and a half (18 months today!) with lots of new teeth and vocabulary and all that jazz. Including the ability to say “ca-ca” with a Finnish accent, in order to get escorted quickly to a bathroom so she can then play with the sink and toilet fixtures. She does this a bit at home, but more at daycare, where said fixtures are suitably tiny and adorable but make me want to soak my hands in bleach because daycare viruses, gag.

It’s also our 5-year wedding anniversary tomorrow, and as far as I can remember, it’s the first one that we will spend on different continents. In fact, this spring semester is the longest stretch we’ve been apart since we piled into my old red golf a dozen years ago and Luke read me comic books while we drove out of RI to set up in a bizarre Atlanta apartment featuring both skateboard ramp and functional garage door in the living room.

Moving to Finland has had some shared strangeness with that big move. Total disorientation at times, and reminders of the vastness of this world. I wonder if the more places you get to know, the more things you are missing at any given time, and this week my sentimental side is definitely missing home. So big x+o’s and happy valentine’s day to all the lovers out there, and a toast …to passion! ❤