Alyssa

After we came home, Zuri woke up just long enough to drink a warm cup of milk and drift back off to sleep with a few poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Now, she's curled up in her bed, wrapped around the stuffed giraffe she picked out at the zoo—her soft snores a whisper through the baby monitor. 

The rest of her gifts—and there are a shit ton—can wait until morning, when she's slept off the sugar crash and the magic of her first birthday.

When War ...