That whole "smiles are free" thing is bullsh!t

Leaving the house in the morning or sometimes even getting out of bed after a simple nap is getting harder and harder now that Zo has learned to smile. Her newest thing is waking up, hearing your voice and grinning ear to ear. It's the most beautiful, sweetest thing ever but we had to earn that grin. Despite what McDonalds will tell you, smiles aren't free.

After a month of reassuring lil' Zo that we weren't going to abandon her and run off to the East Village she's finally feeling comfortable enough to let us know how much she digs us, and it seems to be a lot. So far the only thing that ranks even remotely close to a Zoey smile are:

When Eddie Vedder jumps off of the drum kit in a Roger Daltrey-esque leap of faith and fury...

When Curtis Granderson stretches a single into a triple...

When you step from the airplane onto the tarmack and that warm rush of tropical air smacks you in the face...

Your first glimpse of the Golden gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands...

The first time you hear a "Ripple" sang live...whoa...

Some sunsets...not all, but some...

Practically every sunrise ever...

The view from Griffith Observatory in LA...

Waking up under the Eiffel Tower...

That feeling of beer swishing down a dry throat and into an empty stomach to swoosh around down there...

That look you get when someone is proud of you...

Managing to avoid someone successfully in the grocery store...

Closing your eyes and basking in a Rose Bowl Stadium dusk...

Slipping on a custom tailored Thomas Pink shirt less than twenty feet off of a busy Madison Avenue...

What it feels like to try your first half pipe on a new deck in twenty-five years...

The taste of the first coffee of the day just off El Camino Real in San Clemente...

Hugging the people you love...

Making up kick ass nicknames for people, like "Samsquench" or like "Sammy Davis Gamgee Malone Cooper the fifth", or "The Sammer"...

Bacon wrapped Jalapeno's over the grill...

Singing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway...

A hot shower...

The way June's hair feels...

Uhmmmmm....that's about it.

About the only thing better than a Zoey smile so far was the day her Mom said "yes." That one felt pretty good...tossed out into the great "can't take back" void right there beside a BART stop and a trash can on Sutter Street in San Francisco...with no ring...and no clue why it had to be then and there...or why she said yes...or what we'd do after she said "yes". There's not much better than a Zoey smile but that one's pretty good.