Mmm, mutton.

Tonight Audrey and I watched the Men's figure skating short program and made slight fun of the Russian guy (how great was it when Dick Button said he'd cast him to be the evil agent - he really wanted to say evil Russian guy, but couldn't because that's not PC) because he has awful hair (and I secretly wished he would bite the big one because he won so big lat time that he's the Yankees of men's figure skating). And we spoke again how she had never watched the winter Olympics before. I said, "Well, yeah, it was four years ago, you were practically a baby."

Audrey laughed and said in exasperation, "Mom, four years old isn't a baby!"

"That's right, four years," I said smiling and then again, "Four years..." And it hit me. I wasn't with her four years ago. That was why she'd never watched the winter Olympics with me. I wasn't with her last time. Four years ago. And it all crashed on me. Funny how that happens. Four years ago. I've wondered over and over recently why I barely remember the Olympics at Torino when I can clearly remember so many other winter Olympics. And bam, it clicked. Four years ago, the Olympics started the day after Oliver was born and ran till just days after he died. I wasn't with Audrey, and I was with Oliver and then I wasn't with Oliver. Those 16 days of Olympics were a shadow to the events that colored my existence.

I sent Audrey upstairs to get her pajamas on, and I waited for the wave of memories to pass before going upstairs to read aloud another chapter of Ronia, the Robber's Daughter. We laughed hysterically as her dad told the sheep that they didn't know what it's like to have a dead child before he realized that he always eats their children.

New memories of joy and laughter pave my heart.