I try to take Schmoopie to New York twice a year whether she needs it or not. It's important to me that she is exposed to as much of the real world as she can. Quiet weekends at the beach exploring tide pools and chasing horseshoe crabs is great, but she needs to walk through Times Square and be one with the steaming sewer grates, the rumble of the trains under her feet, the smell of peanuts roasting mingled with urine and cigarette smoke and the wonders of the Stage Door deli, the gloriously sexy Latina girls clustered around tables of knock-off bags, yadda, yadda, yadda.

She saw her first condom last spring when we were traipsing a little-worn trail in Central Park. It was dangling forlornly from the branch of a shrub, looking like overlooked tinsel from a long-forgotten holiday... we had a giggle over it and I explained the reasons why folks might be copulating among the greenery and anonymity of the park. We exited the path immediately, by the way.

Enywho, here's a photo she snapped as we strolled hand-in-hand the evening before Thanksgiving. I love that she still wants to hold my hand and as we walked I rolled her tiny mittened fingers between mine and wished you knew her and composed a postcard to you that I knew I would never actually write or send. But in my heart, I send you one every day.