Time: It's All Relative

Time is changing for me, but it started long before this weekend's change of clocks. I can tell you the exact minute that time suddenly sped up. 6:58am on January 11th, 2008. That is the minute I remember looking at the clock and thinking, "This might be a contraction." Ever since my labor started for the birth of Mari, time seems to be going twice as fast. The labor and delivery of Mari went remarkably fast, and the stay in the hospital was short. I needn't explain the dazy confusion of Mari's first few weeks at home. Since then I have noticed that an hour now only feels like a half hour. The time is speeding by. I have to give myself twice as much time to change diapers, get ready to leave the house, make dinner, or run errands. One night of sleep just seems like a long nap. Mari was born in January and it is March now, where did February go?

I was thinking about all of this as I drove to visit teach a mother with six kids. I thought about the math. If an hour suddenly seems like a half hour with two kids, what does it feel like with four or five kids? I emphasize that I thought about the math, because I couldn't quite get the division right. I was a little awed to think of this mother's stamina and time-management skills. Later I voiced a bit of this to her and her response was reassuring. She said, "In many ways your stage of life is the busiest. Your kids are all at home, all the time. There is no real break. Now I only have one child at home and my days are relatively relaxing. My afternoons and evenings are exhausting with driving kids from one practice to another, but then I can recuperate the following morning." Whew! What a good thing to hear.

The fast speed of passing time will come in handy when Janson is out of town. Then I will be glad to see that one week has already passed, and there are only three more to go before he comes back. Although I know there will be many three o'clock moments of weariness when I wonder if the day, the week or the month will ever end. Perhaps I should start a 3 O'Clock Support Group- we can all call each other around that time to give each other a boost, or just a laugh. Or even better, I'll schedule a "chocolate break" at just such a time. Then I will want the moment to last forever.