Night night with D-Rae

From Matt Gleason: Sometimes, Darby just isn't tired when I put her to bed, so she gets, shall we say, creative when it comes to devising ways to get a bit more Daddy Time after I'm off reading about home runs or the status of some running back's sprained ankle. Tonight, Darby alerted me to her not-so-tiredness by hollering from her crib, and down the hall: "Daaaaaaddddddddeeeeeeeee! DAAAAADDDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! DADDY!!! I. HAVE. SNOT!" She did, in fact, have snot, not much, but there it was, so I wiped it. Soon after, as I checked on my dorky fantasy teams, Darby once again got to hollerin'. I looked at Virginia, and, together, we decided to give Darby one more visit. I went in. This time, Darby told me she was scared of monsters. That's a new one. Thankfully, Darby has gotten over her fear of monkeys, so now she's apparently onto monsters. I assured D there was no such thing, while feeling very much like my father. Then I told her I would protect her from such horrible things, even if they did exist. I'm very tough and macho when it comes to battling all imaginary creatures. Eventually, I was just a few kisses away from heading back to the computer, when Darby tried one last attempt to prolong the visit. "Daddy, raccoons scare me." That kid melts me. I told her raccoons live outside and, actually, at the aquarium, too. So Tuesday night, when the aquarium stays open until 9 p.m., me and the Gleason girls will go see the object of Darby's great fear and maybe watch it eat carrots.