When Bean and I were at the library on Friday, we ran into an old colleague from my pre-Bean days as a working mom. We chatted for a bit and caught up on all the developments in the past few months, while I juggled Bean and tried to stop her from slobbering over the one clean patch I had left on my shirt.

As my friend and I were visiting, she stopped me mid-sentence and said, “I just can’t get over it; you look so happy…you used to smile before, but now you glow. I’ve never seen you smile so much.”

She was also the first person who didn’t ask me when I was going back to work.

Our budget may be on life support, I haven’t had a haircut in eight months and we’ve been downgraded to the cheap hooch, but you know what? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.