If it weren’t for busy times, I’d have no time at all

I wasn’t such a stellar blogger this week.  In fact, the only thing standing between this post and the one on Tuesday is a late-night Thursday limerick.

And just between you and me, limericks and haiku take about as much time and effort to produce as a cup of hot chocolate from an envelope of distressingly strange, pale brownish powder.  Just in case you don’t get exactly how simple that is, please follow this handy guide:

1. Microwave mug of water for 5 minutes, or failing that, as long as your modern, ADHD-riddled, YouTube-trained excuse for patience will allow
2. Tear open envelope of mysterious powder, use teeth if necessary (although try not to inhale said powder…hallucinations may occur)
3. Empty contents of envelope into mug, stir only as vigorously as possible given the likelihood of splooshy your beverage all over the counter
4. Smash dark, unpleasant looking lumps of undissolved powder left as the result of insufficient stirrage against the sidewall of said mug
5. Sip beverage, which likely won’t burn your tongue since you didn’t really nuke it long enough to get “hot-hot” anyway.

Anyway, it was busy week.  I’ve got one of those projects in the wind at work: the kind with a hard deadline and big healthy dollop of crap-I-dunno-if-I-know-how-to-do-this uncertainty.  You know, it’s similar to one of those things where someone gives you a soup spoon, a 10 lb bag of potting soil, a car battery, and a tissue-box cozy someone’s grandmother latch-hooked 20 years ago and tells you to build a rocket to Mars in 10 days.

Weekends don’t necessarily alleviate all that busy, either. As tends to be the case when fall rolls around, Saturdays seem to fill up quicker than a linebacker at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.  Today was no different. My alarm went off a full hour earlier today than it would have if I were going to work, and I dragged Mini-Me out of bed just as light was starting to peak above the horizon like a shy sock puppet.   Then he was off to B & B Gun and Archery Academy for the Cub Scouts.  I…embarrassed myself…hacked away at defenseless turf…”played”, um, in my own way, golf in a fund-raiser outing, Puddinpop was off to see a football game with Grandpa, and Princess Puddinette got to go to the museum with her bestie.

The funny thing is that busy weekends are nothing new around here.   But it wasn’t the usual type of busy where you load up the family truckster sometime early in the day and head out to tackle a few errands only to find yourself debating as you pull back into the driveway at dinner time whether or not two sample crackers of chicken salad from someone’s grandmother at Sam’s can possibly be considered supper.

No, today wasn’t that kind of busy.  It was a completely different kind of busy, one that speaks a great deal of the days looming ahead. Everyone had something to do today, something going on, important on an individual level.  This Saturday, the first of undoubtedly many, was the kind of busy born of a family with a common weave composed of lots of unique and individual threads.  The kids are developing their own lives, they have their own interests. Over time that’ll lead to many more weekends where everyone kind of goes their own way.

It’s fun to watch them grown.  To become real people in their own right rather than just extensions of the Puddinette and I as parents.

And that growth can slow right the hell down right now, thangyouverymuch.

I’m not quite ready for separate lives just yet.

We really need more time.

Pud’n