People are sometimes terrible, butterflies are terrifying, and Finley dances the Macarena.

This semester, Tuesdays and Thursdays are particularly hectic, since I have to leave by 7 to make it in for an early class so Seth takes the kids to daycare. Usually he gets up and works out and then I wake them up and do the "I know you need to potty" routine with Finley, scrub the carpet if it isn't my day to win that one, get them dressed, make breakfast, feed them, and then run out the door as soon as Seth comes in. I have no idea how he showers, and I consider it a minor miracle that I haven't yet made it halfway to the city before realizing that I'm not wearing pants.

This morning it was getting toward "I have to leave or I'll never make it across the GW Bridge before class starts" time, and Seth was nowhere to be found. When Finley disappeared and I could hear her talking to someone, I assumed she had found him in the bathroom or something, and yelled for him to hurry up as I wrestled Ford to get his socks on for the fourth time. No answer. I yelled again. Then Finley came barreling around the corner with the doll she had actually been talking to, and there was still no sign of Seth. Where the hell was he? I was definitely going to be late.

I ran outside to at least start my car, and there he was, scraping thick ice off my windshield and having just finished shoveling my car out after a vicious ice storm last night. I had been so busy I had forgotten all about it. Seth carefully backed my car out of the driveway while I held both kids and tested the brakes on the icy road before sending me on my way.

The man has never once gone and gotten a new toilet paper roll when he finishes one, but he takes snow and ice very seriously and never fails to make sure the sidewalk is salted, the driveway is shoveled, and the cars are safe and ready to go. It's a thoughtful, unprompted gesture that makes me feel lucky and loved every time.

Great timing, too. It has been a trying couple days since the inauguration, with tensions high on social media, at school, and in real life. People, it seems, can't agree on anything, and they can't manage to disagree politely or even civilly. It's disappointing to see and hear people you know just being hateful.

Partly because of the appalling downtrend in permissible political discourse, on Saturday, Finley and I joined the Women's March. I had wanted to take her to the one in NYC, but Seth thought it might get out of hand so, begrudgingly, we headed for the much smaller one in Poughkeepsie instead. And it was perfect. Although the larger marches seemed to get a little off-message with lots of competing interest groups involved, the 5000 or so people who marched across the Hudson and back were kind, inclusive, interesting, and funny. The signs were hilarious. The marchers included a a kindergarten class, Teachers for Tolerance, Nuns for Justice, and a large group of self-proclaimed old hippies. The Black Lives Matter activist let Finley do the "no way!" part of his chant into his megaphone for as long as she wanted (it was adorable and, fortunately, doesn't seem to have become part of her vernacular), and she led the crowd in a rousing rendition of "This Land is Your Land." Her sign, which was an exact reflection of why we attended the event, was perfect and she carried it proudly for almost the whole way.

Although her favorite part was definitely her first train ride.

The whole thing was really meaningful, and well-intentioned, and- at least for us- nonpartisan (does anyone really want to belong to a party that doesn't subscribe to treating women with equality and respect?) So naturally every venture online for the next several days consisted of uplifting photos of friends and colleagues who marched on one hand and, on the other, vitriol about how the global, peaceful marches by millions of people were just gatherings of "(insert derogatory word about women here) whining about wanting their birth control and abortions paid for" and other such hateful nonsense.

It's really kind of depressing, how awful people have become.

For a pick-me-up, we headed into the city with the kids Sunday so we could check out the American Museum of Natural History and take Finley to see the butterfly exhibit. (Oh boy, do we miss the- free!- Smithsonians. The butterfly exhibit was so expensive that Seth wandered around muttering inappropriate things about what, exactly, the butterflies must do for that amount.)

Anyway, it was worth every penny to see Finley's delight at the butterflies, which she was still talking about this morning. Although after a half hour of desperately trying to get one to land on her (Seth and Ford long having fled the steamy conservatory),

these are the terrible faces she made when we finally got one.

The museum was too vast to see in one trip, but we held out until it was waypastnaptime

and headed home in time for the usual Sunday night race to be ready for Monday.

And for all the ups and downs of a crazy week in America; these little faces, and bedtime concerts, and a husband who shovels your car out of an icedrift; are terrific reminders of love and light and gratitude.

And I CANNOT BELIEVE I ALMOST FORGOT THIS. Seth took Finley to her first daddy-daughter dance, which I had always thought of as kind of silly but which turns out to be a major thing here at West Point. He even insisted I get her a new dress for the occasion, and they cannot have been cuter.

Seth took this video of her dancing the "Macarena," which I have watched probably 600 times it's so adorable. Definitely the highlight of the week.