I realize now that before I had a kid, I didn't even know what "busy" was. And every once in a while, when I'm making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with one hand, and trying to type a blog post with the other, I wonder how much I could accomplish if I was child-free. Like this guy, who built a miniature replica of Himeji Castle in eighteen years. Think about it: in the same theoretical time frame that it takes for a child to go from being pushed out of the comfy womb to being pushed out of the parental home and into the wide world, he built a perfect giant miniature (oxymoron) in his garden. If I had eighteen free years, what could I get done?

Of course, I'm not saying I regret having a kid, best thing that ever happened to me, blah blah blah. But shoot, with all that time I could have done so many things, starting with regular bathing and ending with a Nobel for something cool and peace-y. But the truth is I'm probably kidding myself: most of my relentless efficiency and terrifying multi-tasking today was born out of necessity. Cuz kids will make you good at doing lots of stuff in a teeny window of time. I could probably do a replica castle too, though you might have to ignore the peanut butter smears on it.