"At This Very Moment in Manitowoc..."

I just had this funny moment where I realized I fell even more in love with Scarlet tonight - and I didn't think that was possible.  It's hard to point to one glorious moment that popped me over yet another unfathomed peak of the heart.  Well, no, that's not entirely true, in fact, perhaps it's not really true at all.  I recall the moment, and - to me - it was glorious in all its apparent blandness.

The scene was simple enough: I was sitting on the stiff, blue couch in our basement, in workout clothes still damp along the whole left side... not from sweat (after only 17 non-consecutive minutes on the elliptical, even my eager sweat glands remained dormant), but rather where Scarlet had lovingly spit down my shoulder about twenty minutes earlier.

An hour before that, she was up in her bassinet, and I was staring at the ticking digital numbers on the elliptical, trying not to cry.  I had sworn myself to stay down there until it reached the seven minute mark - which was five minutes from when I had first heard her crying through the baby monitor.

Today was the first day I gave us this "timer challenge."  If you look at it as her and I together attempting to conquer a new step (her "first step on the road to becoming an adult" as Kei put it), then we had 35 total minutes of success, where success is defined as her sleeping alone in her bassinet after having been laid down awake... tired to be sure, but awake. On the other hand, if you look at it - as many seasoned parents likely would - as a battle of the wills, then I suppose I have to hand my dear daughter the victory, because there we were, in that moment: I, with a snack instead of a sweat, finishing off the movie I had put on for my workout, and she, curled to my chest, drifting off into a peaceful sleep at long last - with each breath sounding like a sigh of relief, because she was triumphantly right where she wanted to be.

And that was the moment. I probably have close friends who were enjoying impressive Saturdays right at exactly the same very moment: perhaps sipping on fantastic wine or a perfectly made martini in a hip bar in the city, hobnobbing with powerful people... or maybe raving about their incredible dive into the depths of the ocean or glowing in the sweat of an incredible yoga practice... All these Saturdays that a big part of me longs to have again... yet, truth be told, if given such an option, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere other than on that silly couch, being Scarlet's chosen bed.