I had the best night the other night.  Tiny Daughter was sick with a fever that wouldn’t abate.  When she gets fevers, she tends to get seizures, so I was up all night with her on high alert.  My awesome husband joined me now and then, but I was still too nervous to go to bed. Then Baby Cyborg Ninja woke up, howling with starvation. This, of course, woke Small Son up.  3 AM and the entire household was milling around.  It was very much going to be a Monday.

“But wait,” you say, brow endearingly wrinkled in confusion. (How I love that darling brow!)  “Didn’t you say that you had the best night? Are you being sarcastic? Did you mean to say “worst” but your brain is fried?  Please tell me that your brain is fried!”

Thank you for your concern, dear reader, but I said what I meant.  It was truly a lovely night.  Why was this?  Because I was on call.  Even though the city was making The City Starts To Slumber sounds (which sounds an awful lot like its The City Is Chaotically Awake sounds), I was up.  Warming bottles, cooling fevered skin, directing sleepy little ones back to their beds.  My fear of Tiny Daughter’s impending seizure (which never happened.  Yay!) kept me on my toes.  I needed to be awake but I couldn’t immerse myself in writing a story.  I needed to be more present than that.

So I read.  I read short stories, getting up after each one to check on my daughter.  I read essays on writing, a cheery holiday magazine that I savored, and a list of contests that I have had forever.  All of the enjoyable things that I would “get to”?  Well, I got to them.  They were pleasures.  Pure pleasures.

Funny, that.  Funny that I’d put all of these things away while I focus on the Here and the Now of it.  I’d love to read that collection, but I’m battling the school district.  I would adore getting to that magazine, but this laundry won’t put itself away, you know.  This is something that I learn time and time again: the simple pleasures in life aren’t frivolities.  They’re not rewards for surviving the day.  I don’t have to earn them because I, as a human being, deserve them simply for being.  Flowers to smell, desserts to taste.  Life certainly isn’t going to slow down any, so enjoy delights along the way.

Have you had any Aha moments about this?  Any tricks to finding delight in your day?