for having the luxury to lie in bed for an hour this morning, reading and dozing, while audra took roo downstairs. being able to eavesdrop on the two of them enjoying each other is one of the things i love most about parenthood.

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for our afternoon at the waterfront festival. i had a wonderful time, which is to say that only 10% of me was worried that roo's late, unexpected nap (he fell asleep while audra wore him in the ergo) would mean he'd have a hard night.

last summer, back when i was pregnant, i would see women pushing strollers in which their pink-cheeked babies were sleeping, having keeled so adorably over in the heat, and i would imagine how lucky those women felt, how happy. now that i have a baby myself i know that while they do feel lucky, and while the happiness is real, there's also a decent chance that while they're walking along with their kettle corn and fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich, saying things to their partner like,"isn't this fun? i'm so glad we came" and "i'm sure your mother will love the googly-eyed birdhouse," their sleep-deprived self is hunched in a dark basement somewhere, scribbling away like russell crowe in "a beautiful mind," doing the panicky, maniacal math of someone who thinks it's possible to calculate just how screwed she's going to be come 2 AM. or maybe not---maybe it's just me. but i like imagining i'm not alone. and in the end, of course, roo went to bed just fine.

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for audra, who---with candles and amaretto sours---makes the evenings she's at home feel like a date (albeit a date that could be interrupted at any time by a crying baby.)