December 14

Brady turned four years old today. As they typically do on birthdays, the hours sped by, until voila, he was excitedly (and politely!) opening presents and blowing out the candles on his cake. As he geared up to play one of his new video games, I realized I hadn't yet taken a photo with him. So Adam snagged the camera and we did just that.

My first thought, when I saw it, was that the photo itself was just fine; we're both smiling and looking in the right direction, so it met my minimal acceptability criteria. And then I noticed the Lightning McQueen on the couch behind us, grinning in his winsome cars-with-faces way. And the sight gave me an unexpected jolt of joy.

As we presented the cake and then served it up, I kept calling Isaac Logan. I'm not really sure why; I almost never do that. So the combination of my mental misfires and having that Lightning McQueen photobomb my special shot with the birthday boy made me feel like Logan himself was here with us, celebrating and making merry in the only ways he could.

And that's a priceless feeling.