Do you ever have one of those days that you wish you could bottle, put on a shelf, and pull back out to revisit on a day when the world hasn’t been so kind?  That was last Saturday for me.  It may have been the most perfect day of my life.  Nothing major happened.  It was so many little things that all combined for the unique kind of perfection you can only find every so often.

It was Justin’s birthday, so, after we ran a family 5k, Robbie and I headed out on some errands to finish preparing for Justin’s party that afternoon.  Robbie and I picked up some pieces we’d painted a few weeks before and then headed to Target.  Robbie was on a mission to find the perfect presents for his dad, settling on monster trucks, water guns, an Awkward Family Photos book, some running clothes, a rocket to launch, and undershirts.  He’d already ordered the perfect race car cake earlier in the week.  Watching Robbie and Justin open presents, well, it almost brought a tear to my eye.  I don’t know which of them was more excited – Robbie because he had bought Justin perfect toys for them to enjoy together or Justin because so much thought went into the presents.  And there really was a great deal of thought.  Robbie put several things back on the shelf because they were things he wanted, not things Justin would want.

After we opened presents, it was time for Justin to play with all of his toys, so the two boys sat down to play monster trucks.  Somehow, and I’m not quite sure where I went wrong here, it turned into a tickle fest, ending with both of them tickling me.  And it was a moment seared into my memory, one I wish I could have filmed to watch again and again.  There they were, Justin and Robbie, their massive heads blocking anything else from my sight, each of them grinning from ear to ear and laughing so completely and with such abandon that it had to be real.  It was the epitome of happiness, and so I laid there soaking up as much of it as I could, afraid that, all to soon, it would be over.

As the day came to an end, I found myself trying desperately to hold onto it, almost afraid to let it lapse into a memory where time would fade the sincerity of the laughter or the total perfection of individual moments.  I snuggled with Robbie a little longer, relishing that he wanted my arms around him while he drifted off.