The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

I hope they get here soon. The kids are biting at the chomp.

'Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.'

Nobody has ever before asked the nuclear family to live all by itself in a box the way we do. With no relatives, no support, we've put us in an impossible situation.

'A duck!... A baby duck.' (Squealing about a birthday card on her third birthday on Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.