I like being busy.

My best friend sent me a text a couple days ago asking me how life is these days and the first thing that popped into my head was “busy.”

In high school, I had the best grades my sophomore year, when I was quite busy as well as quite motivated.

In the fall I played JV soccer — badly, I might add, but it was a good experience — then in the winter I started helping out the girls basketball team by keeping stats at games. In addition I was serving as sports editor on the school newspaper, section leader of the violas in the orchestra, volunteering with the YMCA, a member of the Natural Helpers peer counselors, taking a full load of classes and making straight As. I think there were a couple other activities on my list, but I can’t recall.

Being busy, I was forced to structure my time after school and on the weekends, because I hated the feeling of doing things at the last minute and I couldn’t do things well generally if I put them off. Plus, I couldn’t put things off, or I’d end up overwhelmed.

Oh, and don’t forget, my husband Jason sat behind me in geometry that year. That was kind of distracting, especially when he ended up dating someone else for six months, but I digress.

In the past year, my life has gotten busier than it’s been since I was in college, but it’s the good kind of busy akin to what I had going on as a high school sophomore.

With work changing dramatically in a good way, I was writing a lot more, taking pictures and learning how to lay out.

And then, of course, we found out about Lyla.

Now that I’m back to work, the word “busy” has a whole new definition, and like my tenth-grade year I am finding that I am forcing myself to manage my time better than ever.

Juggling activities and schoolwork isn’t exactly analogous to managing being a full time journalist and a full time mom and wife, but, what I learned to do well at 15 has certainly helped me manage life now that I’ve gone through some huge changes personally and professionally.

It’s something I’ll have to continue to work on, though, as I get the hang of parenting.

Lyla is just awesome, coming up on three months old, she’s starting to sleep through the night and by that I mean six to seven hours at a time. Never in my life did I think I’d be able to function on six hours of sleep and now I’m thrilled to get that much.

During the day she’s becoming more alert and more active all the time. We laugh and smile and play together. She’s sprouting now and I am more convinced than ever that her Hill genetics will be dominant since there’s lots of height, my husband, for example is 6 foot 3.

Lately she’s been becoming more vocal, cooing and squealing, so I know it’s only a matter of time before she gets more chatty.

I think being a working mom makes me appreciate those moments more.

There is no doubt I look forward to the end of each work day more than ever and I am always thrilled when it’s time to go home and Friday so I can spend two whole days with Lyla.

That is another thing that motivates me to manage my time. If I am productive at work each day then I can enjoy my free time at home with her.

So, yes, I have been busy since she was born and there are things that aren’t getting done as quickly or efficiently as I would like but I’m getting better at it.

I like being busy. And I’ve never had a better reason to be busy.