Early March 2026
I went to the Moomin Museum with my kids this week.
The visit didn’t begin the way I imagined it would. I thought they might be excited immediately, as they love to watch Moomins at home. Instead, they were cautious and clinging to me. They are 1.5 and 3 years old.
After some time, they began to acclimate to the space. They still didn’t really care about the Moomins. Instead, they noticed the light and the echo in the rooms. Their favorite was a small town built under glass in the floor, something you could walk across and look down into.
Over the course of an hour, they walked around it and over it. They pretended to swim across it, pulled me into it, and were completely awed by seeing a small town below their feet.
On the way out, they found their reflections in a glass door, and they started to play with it.
I just stood there watching them.
At some point, I noticed my face had a huge goofy smile on it.
I hadn’t even realized it had formed.
Throughout this afternoon, I wasn’t thinking about anything else.
Not the renovations still ongoing at home.
Not the legal issues that continue to sit in the background.
Not my back, still recovering and reminding me of its limits.
Not the flu that has lingered for two weeks and refuses to fully leave.
Just two small children discovering that a reflection can be that entertaining.
And at home, life has grown louder since our third daughter was born.
The birth itself was a triumph for my wife, as she finally got the water birth she wanted. It was the most grounded and successful of her three births.
As could be expected, neither of us has quite gotten enough sleep since the birth. Nights are interrupted. Mornings begin earlier than we’d prefer.
If the house wasn’t loud before, it certainly is now. It carries even more life. There’s something undeniably happy about that.
Her two older siblings run around her, playing tag, tossing toys with more force than we’d prefer. My wife and I are constantly bracing for a ball or a chair to land a little too close.
Our newborn seems to sleep through almost anything, wrapped in her own small world of warmth inside a blanket, and she barely stirs.
The children are just there.
We’re the ones a few steps ahead in our minds, bracing for things that haven’t even occurred.
Sometimes I wonder if they have it right.
My back still forces me to move more carefully than I’d like, but I can keep up with the kids’ games. I feel frustrated about how slowly my body recovers, and I’m not even 35 yet. But I’m still here, still running around with them.
So my Early March looks something like this.
I’m a bit tired and slightly worn. I’m still dragging a few unfinished things behind me.
And somehow… content.
The days are louder now, and the nights shorter.
There’s less space.
But more life in it.
You can explore the rest of the essays in the Library