life & death.

A man was executed by firing squad this morning in Utah. I have no idea why I read the articles detailing it: I ended up with a big stomach ache and a lump in my throat. I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be executed for what he did... it's just sobering to contemplate life

-snuffed out just like that.

(An article included a diagram via Amnesty International comparing the number of executions carried out in countries around the world in 2009. There were 52 in the U.S. There were over 1,000 in China. Over 1,000. Does that strike anyone else as a little crazy?)

The baby broke my concentration. He was squawking from his room, presumably from pulling himself into a standing position in his crib (he hasn't yet figured out how to sit down again.) I pushed open the brown wooden door and sure enough, there he was: chubby, dimpled knees quivering and a look of stricken desperation splashed across his face. Help. Me!

I heaved him up and he grabbed my hair for stability. I snatched his pacifier and we went across the hallway to my bedroom for a snack. He drank and drank, eyes blinking slowly with contentment as his tummy filled. And then he was done, rolling over drunkenly to swipe at my iPhone where it lay on the other side of the bed. Before his little hands could close around it, he was in my arms again, half-smothering himself in my chest while I leaned to arrange his little blanket and pull the tail to activate his singing dog.

Positioned between his blanket (a handful now clutched in one hand) and the singing dog (now embraced with the other free arm), he stared up at me calmly. I felt like I saw what he might look like as a young man. And then he kicked his little legs in the air and I had a baby again, twisting onto his stomach for his preferred sleeping position

-and I'm back in the land of the living, just like that.