When you have children, your relationship with time changes (as does your relationship with various body parts, but we'll leave that topic untouched for the moment). Gone are lazy hours spent in front of the TV, bookstore browsing or window shopping with a friend. 'What time is it?' my husband and I used to ask each other, looking up from the Sunday New York Times and wondering if we could squeeze in a movie before dinner.
Once children enter the picture, time becomes as taut and unforgiving as a pair of skinny white jeans. An extra few minutes hunting for my daughter's glasses in the morning can easily sabotage 'Operation: Get to School On time.' Dinner must be served by six or children start prowling my kitchen like alley cats (where did they all come from?). After dinner, I must get the baby in the bath before cranky time, which is an actual time of day. I continue to crack the whip as the day marches on toward bedtime and, as the hour rounds 8:30, I unravel like Cinderella's ball gown.
But time is not only my cruel mistress, keeping the train that is my family running with Nazi-like accuracy. Recently, it has been taunting me as well, shape-shifting before my eyes like something out of a science-fiction movie. Sometimes it seems to move so quickly that I find myself celebrating the bat mitzvah of a girl I visited in the hospital the day she was born, or picking out an outfit for my 20th high school reunion. Other times, it drags on, like when I'm watching my son run in and out of the sliding doors at the supermarket. I try to be patient and delight in his wonder, but inside I'm thinking 'Hurry up! I've got to get home and make dinner!' Cue sound of whip cracking.
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Children keep us moving through the day with their seemingly endless list of demands: feed me, change me, love me, don't forget me at my friend's house. Before having kids, I flitted through jobs and graduate school, moving on when I felt antsy. But I soon realized parenthood was a job I couldn't quit, and there were no mental health days. Feed, change, burp, repeat all day every day and, just for good measure, do it all night, too.
I remember nights when I was up with one baby or another, leaking milk and tears and staring down the glowing numbers on the digital clock, I would recall that people tried to warn me about the relentlessness of parenthood when I was pregnant. 'Oh yes, I understand,' I would say knowingly, rubbing my round belly. But secretly I would give myself a mental high-five and think 'Why are you telling me something I already know? Can't you see I am infinitely prepared for this great adventure?' If you were one of those people, I'm sorry. Consider me schooled.
