Do you want to know what constitutes a perfect day in this household? Let me tell you about it, because today was our first ever.

The kids woke up cheerful, played quietly with James, ate all their breakfast, and took a solid hour-long nap. When I got home from class it was sunny, so I fed them an early lunch, which they ate with lots of smiles and giggles (Emi "surreptitiously" dropping bites of food to the dog, hee hee hee). Then we drove over to Capitol Hill and went on a two-hour stroller walk with Barbara and her boy-girl twins, swung on swings in Volunteer Park, strolled some more, stopped at a coffee shop and shared a berry smoothie and oatmeal cookie, napped while strolling some more.

We came home, read books, played quiet and fun games like "hug Mama" and "pull all the blocks out of the bag one at a time and try to feed them to Mama." Both of them tried to oink like a pig and moo like a cow along with the characters in "Moo, Baa, La La La." Emi's version of an oink is the wicked back-of-the-throat "ha!" that Tracy taught her. Tuck's version of a moo sounds like this: "MMMnnn. MMMmmm." Which he follows with a shy smile. No one fussed all afternoon and the only injury was a faint scratch on the back of Emi's hand, which she showed me with great importance.

The house was clean all day because this is Betty's day here, and there was plenty of formula in the fridge thanks to Chrissy's good offices. I had time to make up the kids' dinner in advance in a dish with compartments, and to set out jammies etc. for bedtime. Chrissy came and managed dinner, bath and bedtime by herself so that I could go to a physical therapy / Pilates appointment at a new place for my back. She reports that both Tuck and Emi went down contentedly right after 6 p.m. After I got home I went in to tuck them in. Tuck is so big now I hardly recognize him in the dark. ("Who is this toddler in the crib? Where's my little baby boy?") Emi breathes very cutely in her sleep.

I wish I could bottle the essence of today and just sprinkle a bit of it over other days when things are more difficult. I must admit that all day I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. In their sleep both are coughing every so often tonight. Emi has had the beginnings of a cold for a couple of days now. Is that the other shoe? Is it?