Just Joy | sidewalks, feel me strut so good; gutter, don't forget this face

• We are at the circulation desk checking out this week's book haul when one of the librarians (one I remember from my own childhood visits to Cary Public Library) compliments Mads on his Batman mask and gloves. Mads is exasperated and corrects him, "No, I'm The Flash," and I translate/explain that Mads is actually The Flash disguised as Batman. Mads tells him, "Actually, Batman is my brother and he let me use his mask." The adults have a good chuckle at this. One librarian says, "Nice brother!" As we're walking out the door, Mads turns and shouts, "Remember, I'm The Flash and I run really fast, but Mommy doesn't like me running in the library!" I am doubled over laughing as I usher him out the door.
• Mads has fallen into a limp, heavy sleep on the drive home. I lift him out of his car seat and cradle him, shushing with "my sweet boy"s and "mommy's here"s. 93% asleep, he reflexively lays a smacking smooch on my neck.
• I am a nearly 33-year-old woman, riding a horse on a 96-year-old carousel, calliope music and pastels washing over me.
• Cars slow down and honk, drivers wave, as we light fireworks in our drive way. A shower of sparks rain down, silhouetting my baby's excited face as he looks back at me, making sure I'm sharing this spectacle with him.
• We are having a great, slow morning together--the kind of morning I want to have more of, the kind of present, mindful morning I am proud of. I turn on Queen of the Stone Age's "Misfit Love" and Mads plays along with a pink plastic whistle. Wolfman picks up Mads' tiny play guitar and begins to strum along.
• It is Sunday morning, and I have to wake Mads at 7 so we can take his dad to work. He's happy when he opens his eyes as I pull up the blinds in his room. When I lay next to him to snuggle a bit before we're off, he asks dreamily, "Mommy, can you scratch my back?"
• Grandma is standing in my kitchen, and Thorn meows at her feet. She leans down and groans as she picks him up. "I forgot what it's like to have a big cat like this, a T-shell cat," she says (her favorite cat, T-Shell, was maybe even bigger than Thorn). I ask her how much she thinks he weighs. "I don't know? Thirty pounds?"

"Misfit Love," Queens of the Stone Age