Time in a Bottle

Over the past year, my mind has loitered around the subject of time like a buzzard circling fresh road kill. Looking at the big picture, I have felt the passage of time in terms of what I am no longer likely to accomplish.  For instance, I am no longer eligible to compete for a spot on American Idol due to my advanced age (well, my singing voice might be a contributing factor).  And it is highly improbable at this point that I will qualify for the Olympics due to my current state of antiquity and delapidation (and lack of a sport, fitness, or a sponsor). 

On a smaller scale, time has lately been compressed and then doled out in baby-sized increments.  Nearly 9 months of pregnancy was sweated out in tiny, week-to-week achievements. I read every book and website that described what to expect at each moment of incubation.   Gradually, as I tracked Izzy's progress, the excitement of her graduating from the size of a flax seed to a kidney bean and beyond gave way to the thrill of her first kicks which occurred right on time at 17 weeks.  Once she emerged on the other side of my protruding abdomen, time was measured on another scale:  12-hour NICU nursing shifts, 9 a.m. doctor's rounds, and the daily run between hospital and home. 

Now that Isabel is home and we have established about as much routine as possible in the insanity that we are loosely calling life with our new baby, time is measured by yet another formula.  We live in the small windows of time that open briefly between feedings, diaper changes, wardrobe malfunctions (usually in the form of The Little Diaper That Couldn't), rubber-ducky time, and my personal favorite, cuddle time. 

The large blocks of time we once reserved for luxuries such as using the bathroom, showering, and changing the litter box are things of the past.  And of course, we've come to realize that sleeping is for sissies. To think we once felt the need to slumber for more than four hours at a stretch seems almost decadent.  With the amount of time we save by truncating our sleep, as well as the absolute neglect of personal hygiene and housekeeping, one would think that the days would just yawn, stretch, and drift slowly by.  But to our amazement, entire days and weeks zip by in a blur of milestones reached and baby clothes outgrown.  By contrast, when functioning (or not) on 2 hours of sleep, the emptying of a 4-oz bottle of milk can seem as long and painful as the Clinton years. 

These comments about time are not a revelation; everyone knows that an hour spent reading a novel does not equal an hour rocking your colicky baby no matter what the clock face tells you.  Time is most definitely a relative dimension.  As a friend of ours likes to say, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper - it goes faster as you get towards the end."  And while most people will agree with that profound statement, the following anonymous (and much sappier) quote comes closer to describing the effects of a new baby on our perception of time and all the ways we spend it:

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankrolls smaller, homes happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.