Moments To Spare

I'm sitting here beside my stack of books.  A stack I'm ever so slowly making my way through simply because there just hasn't been time to make any real progress these nights. I've only just paged through June's Bon Appetit, but I've seen enough to say it deserves more time and some tasty trial too.  I missed both last night's and tonight's episodes of DWTS.   And that's just fine because I cannot Tivo life or little league.  Today there was only enough spare time for moments.  We managed to make the most of them.  We eked out the marrow...every morsel.  

The highlight of the day for Miss Bit was an after school date with her Dad.  I'm quite sure the anticipation of the exciting father daughter excursion made for a very long day for my girl.  Together they had plans to visit the Harley museum so she could prepare for a class presentation. Prepare and apparently pretend that she is Evil Kenevil!  The pictures they took perfectly captured their moments together.  I'm glad they shared them: the moments together and the pictures with me.    

T. Bone declined an after school invitation from a friend without any grief or guile.  Instead he came home alone with me to complete his homework so he could attend his sister's first softball game of the season.  He painted his rocket all rainbow for tomorrow's launch and did some reading while I worked out and then made a quick dinner.  We each did our own thing, but in the moments in between we were connecting, conversing, collaborating and coming together.

I may have been more nervous for Miss Bit's first big girl softball game than she was.  Well, that is until T. Bone was talking forced outs on the way to the field.  I'm pretty sure then she just wanted to turn around and come home at that point too.  I'm certain it no longer sounded like a sound idea to be a second grader on a team of third through fifth graders.  But my Bit...she played herself (all ourselves) proud.  I will always remember the bullet she hit that the pitcher barely caught as my girl ran straight through first base like nobody's business with a beaming smile.  The first base coach had to practically forcibly remove her...nobody was stopping her or calling her out.  In one game, she's one of the team.  That's just sweet like the caramel left coating her ice cream bowl tonight.  Hurt your teeth in a good way kind of sweet.

The Lightning won by so much we lost count because while we do keep score now at this level, at some point the numbers don't really matter.  We celebrated the victory over ice cream and ping pong as a family, which is to say sublimely.  Before bed, I finally read the final chapter of Little House on the Prairie with Miss Bit. Then I tucked in T. Bone.  When he asked me to trace a word on his back, I short changed him with A-C-E.     He pleaded for another and what can I say when he says it's his favorite time of day?  I obliged with R-O-C-K-E-T.  The last peep I heard from Miss Bit was the tail-end of her sweet prayers.  She had zero trouble falling asleep after a day so rich in moments.

So I guess the lesson I was reminded of today is that even when I think I'm too busy to stop and savor the seconds at hand, there are always moments to spare.  There's always something to celebrate when I choose to slow down long enough to notice and embrace them.