It is shaping up to be a swell day. It’s 62 degrees outside. Once I manage to get moving, I’ll head to the botanic garden – alone – with a book. I get plenty of alone time during the week when the kids are at school, but there is something truly decadent about getting to be alone on a weekend day. J intuitively gets this. And he is ferrying the kids to their birthday parties today. Thank you, J.

The morning started a little earlier than I would have liked thanks to more unexplained wakefulness at 4 a.m. I fought my way back to sleep after an hour or so. And then it was morning. And then this happened:

A sheaf of adorably drawn cards and singing and smiles and the most paradoxical thing of all – a delicious breakfast in bed, to be enjoyed alone, but with two excited boys bouncing around in the vicinity making it hard not to spill. Luckily they are a bit older now, and can be shooed away for a time. But I didn’t want them too far. I love them. All of them. I never thought when I started a family that I’d be this utterly outnumbered in terms of gender. Perhaps I feel a bit like Jane Goodall feels. No, they aren’t my same exact species… but I’ll defend them to the death.

Last week an artist friend issued an offer of customized infographics to anyone in our email group who would submit a list of words to him. One of the words needed to be an emotional state. I told him that steroids are definitely an emotional state. Here was the result. Thanks, Michael, for a clear illustration of my life at present. I am hoping some of the chart elements soon recede – just the chocolate can stay.