I defy anyone to interact with a baby and not feel good about the world.

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/baby.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-228" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/baby-300x225.jpg" alt="Pauline and baby Maddie" width="300" height="225" /></a>I spent the better part of two weeks with my lovely daughter and my wonderful granddaughter, and I feel extremely happy that I have been able to share so much of Maddie's first 16 months on Earth.

Ten days in Beijing, three weeks in Los Angeles, two weeks in Washington State and two weeks in Northern Virginia isn't bad, although the odds are pretty good that I won't be able to spend any more time with her in person in 2010. We won't be going back to Virginia until autumn at the earliest, and Maddie and her parents will be leaving for three years in Indonesia in late June.

Once Nicole is retired, we expect to be traveling to see each of our kids and their families at least once at every posting they have as Foreign Service officers. We're only one out of two so far -- we visited Pauline and her family in China but not in Cameroon. Whether we make all the postings from now on depends at least a little on where they go. We'll visit Virgile at his first posting in Greece, but if he winds up in some -stan country after that, we're not promising anything.

Of course once Virgile and Sterling start giving us grandchildren, all bets are off.

Pauline and Ryan are talking about having a second child during the tour in Indonesia, but I think Maddie will still be the star of the show for a few more years at least. She's walking, talking and doing a pretty good impression of reading books (she turns the pages and points at the pictures). She has also learned to applaud and say "Bravo," which is pretty impressive.

In the picture above, she had her first visit to the Kennedy Center for a special children's show.

By all accounts, she enjoyed herself.

I'm sure everyone with her did as well.

How could they not?