In the Meantime

The title of this post suggests there has actually been a "meantime" in the past couple of weeks. Sometimes there is only time when you make the time. I wanted to create some of that time on Smunch's birthday to do something he really wanted to do. I picked him up directly from school that day, dropped Mam off with a friend and headed to a somewhat nearby city to...well...stand in line with a bunch of other orange-and-black-clad people. Why not, right? Apparently, that's how Smunch and I roll these days.

Of course, our initial spot in line was nowhere near where I took that picture. It was all the way down the street...and around the corner. After standing in line for five on ten minutes, Smunch said, "Maybe we should go." To which I said, "You wanted to come and I drove you all the way here, so we're going to stay here for half an hour and see how fast this line moves." It was roughly 3:30 in the afternoon...time for the line to start moving.

The line moved quite a bit and although I was sensitive to making my newly minted nine-year-old stand in line for his birthday, I knew this was something he really wanted to do...and O.K., I kinda wanted to do it with him. Oddly, I spotted the guy I sat next to at the World Series ahead of us in line. I wish I'd said 'hi', but it seemed weird. We stayed in line and took little trips up to the front to catch a glimpse of our ultimate goal.The line was going to close at 5:30 and it was starting to get late. It was right about 5:25 when we finally reached the front. Yay!In approximately 10 seconds, we were shuffled along, out of the line and headed home.

Was this worth it? You bet!

On the way home, we stopped off by Kara's Cupcakes and Smunch got to choose his festive dessert for the evening. Then we zipped over to his favorite restaurant, where we met Daddy and Mam for a birthday dinner...which was cut short by the ill-considered need to get to a Mavericks team meeting...which ran totally late.

We got home around 8:30 (half an hour past Smunch's bedtime). He'd been gone from the house since he left for school that morning. He scarfed a cupcake, brushed his teeth and went to bed.

I'm not sure that made for the most fabulous birthday ever. I'll have to see what he thinks when the photo of us with the World Series trophy arrives in the mail!