Sarah Too

One Year. Babies warp time. Somehow this was the slowest, and swiftest, passage of time in my life. I cannot imagine how that is so - it can only be magic.

Motherhood made me the most present to the moment that I have ever been in my life. There is nothing else but this diaper change. This screaming fit. This middle of the night feeding. This hour before nap time. This moment before my baby drifts off to sleep. Dishes and laundry remain in unwashed piles. Correspondence with loved ones is passive, at worst, and interrupted and non-sequitur at best. This planner of a woman can barely plan the next meal, much less the next week or month.


While I am in the midst of a bad moment (e.g., a screeching, ear-piercing wailing on the changing table), it seems as if time stops. The madness will never end. And it wipes out the hour of bliss that preceded it. However, while I was in that hour of bliss, time also stopped as I watched Bman play, explore, and discover with squeals of delight.

Babies warp time. I understand now how my Dad looks at me. He sees me at once as a newborn, a precocious toddler, an unsure tween, a sullen teen, and a grown woman. It is confusing as hell. When I realize I am looking at Bman this way - with a wistfulness for the helpless newborn he once was - it makes me want to scoop up my baby and squeeze him with kisses even as he wriggles his way free. And he wriggles his way free as often as possible.

Happy 1st Birthday, Bman. I cannot wait to see where you wriggle to next over the course of this next year. I know with certainty it will be someplace new and unexpected - for both of us.