Like last night, for example. I was chatting with some friends online, and ended up staying up until 2:00 in the morning to continue a conversation with the lovely Lisa down in Australia. Sleepy, and my rear end has formed to the chair, but it was worth it to just connect with someone for a while.

And then, this morning. Emily is at school, but Jacob and I are home, for what will likely be the last near-90 day. So we headed to the beach. It was the first time I'd taken him without Emily, and I got to watch him be himself, without trying to follow her lead. We left sandy and hungry and tired, but it was worth every second.

Now the back of my minivan is covered in baby powder and sand, but that's worth it, too. I don't remember who taught me the baby powder trick, but it is such a fabulous way of removing sand without taking sensitive little body parts with it.

Jacob was developing the 10-yard stare and putting his little arms up so that his hands were behind his ears and his elbows were up in the air - a position affectionately known in our vehicles as "tuning into the nap channel." Apparently he gets better reception that way. So instead of making him wait 20 minutes to get home to eat lunch, we swung through McDonalds. And the 4,597 calories I consumed alongside him were worth the successful lunch-and-naptime extravaganza here.

It's even worth having AAA, because yesterday Willem and I pushed, pulled and prodded my Saturn out from the side of the house to the front, and we weren't able to get it jump started. So the AAA dude showed up today, a big sweaty guy named Jeff who apparently doesn't need more than two words per sentence, and got it running in about 5.2 seconds.

Happy sigh... I just don't know what I'd do with myself if every day was like this.