April 27

As a general rule, I find it annoying that my kids are on opposing schedules so I'm never truly child-free these days: Abby and Isaac go to school in the mornings, while Brady goes in the afternoons. I drop him off and then literally immediately drive across town to pick up the other two. But with that said, I do have to admit that my morning moments alone with Brady are priceless.

Take today when he came downstairs for a mid-morning snack. He plunked down next to me with a Pop Tart, and while he crinkled the wrapper, I turned my attention to the stack of unopened Safeway Monopoly tickets in the center of the table. So we spent quality opening (him), scanning the tickets into my phone app (me), and choosing red or blue for our second chances (him). 

Fifteen minutes later, we'd exchanged a bunch of virtual tokens for $10 in Safeway cash, and won two bottles of water, a bottle of vinegar, and a deluxe nail clipper. (But alas, no doughnuts. I do miss the doughnuts.)

They were plain old everyday moments for sure, but good ones nonetheless. And I am grateful for every one of them.