My heart is in good hands.

It was early this morning and my daughter woke me up the way she usually does. "Wake up, silly," she joyfully exclaimed. There is no waking up in a bad mood when those are the first words I hear. In her eyes, it really must be the silliest thing that I'm still sleeping when she's so awake and so happy at six in the morning. Never mind that I tend to go to bed at two.

I open my eyes, smile, and chat a bit with her as she goes about the process of convincing me that I should get out of bed and come into the living room with her. What we were talking about, I have no recollection, but at one point I said, grinning mischievously, "Ari, you break my heart." I said this more for me than for anyone else. It sounded like a cute thing to say to my wonderful little princess, regardless that the meaning of the phrase was probably way over the reach of her 2-year-old pretty head.

Always the apple of my eye, she responded sweetly: "Don't worry, Daddy. I'll fix it. I'll fix your heart." If I wasn't wrapped around her finger already, I certainly was now. Reflexively, I turned to see if her mom had heard this cute little offer of love. She had and we got to share one of those perfect little moments between parents.

If nothing else, Ari made up for the time that she and I had the following exchange:

Me: I love you, Ari.
Ari: Awww. And I like you, Daddy.