Full versus Busy

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I am woken by Joaquin calling or crying from his room. Sometimes the sky is still gray and the clock reads 6:00 a.m. Other days I am already in a wakeful sleep when his first noises wake me. First thing I do is nurse Joaquin in my bed. If its six and I am tired, my sweetheart takes Joaquin to the coffee shop two blocks away to let Joaquin watch the ceiling fans and sip an early coffee. Then I get up, get dressed, dress Joaquin and one of us starts to feed him breakfast. At 8:30 Brenda and Sofia, our babysitter and her toddler, come in to take over. Daniel drives me to the carpool and I am off to San Francisco. Then I become solar evangelist and policy wonk. At 6:30 I return home and do a reverse order of the morning.
Wednesdays, Fridays, and weekends are a shuffle of fun and life maintenance while entertaining a munchkin on my hip.

I have often used the word busy to describe my life, meant as a positive response describing a lot of self subscribed activity, but I never liked the word. Somehow it also alluded to the notion that I was too occupied to appreciate what was at hand. And perhaps I bristled the most at the connection between busy and business. That somehow busy meant the substance of life had become business, not pleasure.
Now that my hands are so literally full. I could easily respond that I am busy.

But that's not how life feels. Life feels full. My hands are full of pudgy, delicious, squirmy baby. My mind is full of observations of firsts- was that a first baby kiss? a first wave, first tuna sandwich. My mind is also full of solar policy details, then add to that the many family connections that have been strengthened with the arrival of Joaquin. Somewhere pushed from the forefront are my old delights like my girlfriends, music, nature observations whose return I anticipate. And laced throughout every thought are the must-do errands of life.

My heart is full. I looked at that little face that I look at with wonder easily 50 times a day as he was drifting to sleep in his stroller this morning and my heart swelled to where I could feel the warm of tears in the back of my eyes. My love for Daniel has grown and my gratitude for his nature knows no bounds.

Life is full. Sometimes this is hard for my friends and co-workers without children to understand. I am sure I did not understand last year this time.