Click here to visit the new home of ParentDish!

Hot on HuffPost Parents:

 

When Mama's Away, Day 4: waking up with the boy

by Larissa Brown (Subscribe to Larissa Brown's posts)
May 7th 2006 12:59PM

0Comments

Filed under: Just For Dads

Larissa's on vacation (this is her "dh" Martin filling in), so I get up every morning with Binx.  Sure it's sweet and precious -- and believe me I'll get to the cutesy stuff -- but since it's Sunday, maybe it's time to stretch out a bit and think about that ineffable 4th dimension: time.

(A resounding roll from the tympani drums, please, or even better, the sound of a gong.)

So far in my life I've been resistant to acknowledging the passage of time.  Though by rock and roll standards my life's been pretty tame, by my ancestors' WASPy ones I've been quite dissolute in my avoidance of adult responsibilities.  In certain ways it's helped.  I'm (holy moley) 19 years older than the drinking age in my area, but until recently I got still got carded regularly when buying beer.

As a consequence I've willfully ignored all the standard symbols of advancing age.  I've seen spring flowers coming and going, leaves turn to brown, winter snows fall and melt... blah blah blah and SO WHAT.
The closest I ever came to realizing that time was a curse and a hag was when I was working as a scientist.  I needed to do a day-long set of measurements of light from the sky.  I placed my instrument on top of an old grain silo. Without a computer datalogger to help me, I had to check my instrument and write down numbers every 10 minutes.  Big mistake.  In the summer that meant a 15-hour day of 10-minute waits.  10 minutes is not enough time to feel busy, or to rest.   (For the thrilling results, see this paper ,  Figure 3.)

That day was absolutely maddening, but it was an anomaly.  I continued to ignore time.  It went forward; I felt the same.

But now when I stumble into Binx's room in the morning and see him standing up in the crib, round head rolling cheerily, with a full-out grin of incomplete teeth, I feel time flowing all around me. 

He's a little bit taller than yesterday, he shifts his feet different, he makes different sounds than he used to.  He's no longer the blob he was when we brought him home from the hospital.  I wonder when he'll walk.  When he'll talk.  When he'll be angry at me.  It's all so melodramatic and European.

With all that perspective, I can't feel young anymore.  I do wonder: why does time just go forward? Why can't we stay in one place along the time line, or go back?  The other dimensions aren't like this.  It's not like we are inexorably driven North.

But I don't linger on thoughts like that too long.  I'm too enchanted watching the boy change.

[Thanks to Todd Klassy for the photo under the Creative Commons attribution license.]

Your<span>Voice</span>

Ask Us Anything About Parenting

Get Answers

Recently Asked

More Related Questions

FollowUs

Flickr RSS

TheTalkies

AskAdviceMama

How can I get my teenage son to open up?
AdviceMama Says:
Start by teaching him that it is safe to do so.
Read more

More Recent Questions: