As a parent, you'll occasionally have moments when all is right with the world, at least within the confines of your own little world. Everyone in the family is getting along, the sun is shining in your hearts, the love is flowing, the future looks bright.

That's when you need to pull out the camera. Even if there's no major event, no happy holiday, no striking of a pose, no magical reason to record the moment, I urge you to take a picture.

Really. Take a picture. Because that moment won't last.

All of a sudden, with no warning whatsoever, the dark clouds will roll in and the ground will shift then crumble beneath your feet.

I know. I've been there. Several times. In fact, I offer that advice as Jim and I sit atop a pile of rubble, looking at each other, shaking our heads, asking "How did we get here?"

We'd been down this road before, thought the lessons had been learned, thought we'd never have to pass this way again.

Yet here we sit, dumbfounded, asking "WTF?"

And our daughter just shrugs her shoulders and waves from her pseudo-solid ground, oblivious to the way she's knocked our world off its axis.

So we pick ourselves up. We dust ourselves off. We start all over again.

And out of the blue, as we go through the motions of daily life, one of us mutters, "This sucks. This really, really sucks!"

"Yeah," the other responds, "this sucks."

We don't know what else to say.

Mere days ago we had a brief moment when all was right with our world.

I wish I had taken a picture.

('Nuff said.)

Today's question from "If...(Questions for the Game of Life)":

If you had to cancel one hour of the day, every day, which hour would you eliminate?

I'd eliminate 5 a.m. That's the time I usually glance over at the clock on the night stand and realize I have only one more hour to sleep.