Each week I read Kaz Cooke’s week-by-week pregnancy guide, A Bun in the Oven. This week she wrote that it’s common to be weepy and emotional. I thought, “That’s funny, I was weepy and emotional with previous pregnancies, but not with this one.” Then I was in the living room while the kids were watching Arthur, and it was an episode with Mr. Rogers on it, and I’d never seen that one. I was feeling all warm and sentimental about Mr. Rogers, especially when there was that little section of “live” TV between animated segments of Arthur and Mr. Rogers himself was on, explaining to children how cartoons are made and how the voices are done. And suddenly I remembered that Mr. Rogers had died, and I burst into tears. And I’m doing it again as I’m writing! So apparently things are par for the course.

And the other day, Paul was telling me the plot of some absurdly sentimental Christmas carol in which a cat and a mouse keep each other warm on a cold Christmas night and the cat dies, and when he got to that part I was nearly screaming with laughter about the silly maudlin song, but I also started weeping and almost couldn’t stop, and then later in the shower I thought of the cat dying and started crying again. It’s not even a real cat! As Paul said, in an affectionate but gently mocking voice when he saw that I had started crying, “I’m pretty sure it’s not based on a true story.”