Elliot turned fifty days old last week (a big deal here in Korea, as a milestone towards the really big deal of 100 days). There was cake and friends and photos and celebration (of course, it helped that my parents were here, which made everything inherently celebratory!)
And while my mantra over the last year has been "celebrate everything", I'm now fighting ever fiber of me that's making my new mantra: "time flies so fast" by default.
I must have heard a version of this easily a hundred times now -- starting from pregnancy and newborn wishes: "Enjoy him. Time goes by so so fast." When people ask me how I'm doing and how it's all going, I find myself also parroting, "It's all gone by so fast." One month... fifty days... "It's sad in a way -- the baby stage moves way too fast," is how one good friend put it.
The thing is, though, does time have to "fly"? We all know time is malleable; an author I like calls it "Einstein time" -- it's all relative. This dichotomy is highlighted in the title of a podcast Tyler and I love called "The Longest Shortest Time." It's a phrase that reflects the oxymoronic nature of parenting -- yes, the time goes by quickly, but in some ways, time has never passed more slowly: "It's only 10:30pm and he's up for another feeding already?! -- the night will never end!"
Clearly, I'm still feeling my way towards my own answers. But almost two months in, I think I'm finally starting to work my way there.
For one, the flip side of all the celebration is that there's a milestone (or two!) every week: he turned 7 weeks the day before his 50th... five days later was eight weeks (marked by Elliot's first smiling selfie, below!); two months is coming up on Saturday. It's like an ever-present ticking clock supported by social media.
But it goes deeper than marking balloons on calendars. In retrospect, I realize that I was responsible for much of the "forwarding-tripping" myself. I think back to all those days (especially our first few back at home) where it felt our only goal was to "get through the day" -- particularly those "witching hours" of 6-9pm, where it seemed nothing we did placated his cries...only to have our new goal be to "get through the night." I remember feeling relief every time it turned 6am, since being up at 6am to feed seemed much more civilized than 3:30am. I could convince myself that I was still a "productive" individual of society being up at 6am, whereas I just felt like a sleep-deprived new mom who couldn't put her child back to sleep at 3:30am.
And just like that, unbeknownst to me at the time, I was mentally fast-forwarding my life (and the precious first few weeks with my baby) -- like that Adam Sandler movie with the magical remote control that let him fast-forward first minutes, then days, then years of his life (yes, I realize that I am getting philosophical with Adam Sandler). Well-meaning publications and even friends and family didn't necessarily help. "Just wait until his second month when he'll be smiling so much" -- my mother said shortly after Elliot's first smile (which happened his first week at the hospital). "The Happiest Baby on the Block" promised that colic (which thankfully Elliot doesn't have) and the witching hour (which unfortunately he does) would end at the end of three months (and as I write this, I realize it somehow magically has gone away right around weeks 7-8). Koreans would always say: "Just wait until 100 days -- it gets easier after that." Friends told me that it was good our parents weren't coming right away because "the baby doesn't do anything fun right away anyway"... ok then, let's skip to the fun!
Perhaps one of the best pieces of advice I got upon childbirth was from my mother-in-law, who said she wished she didn't keep looking forward to the next milestone, but instead really enjoyed the present. I think about that a lot.
I think about that when I'm nursing him, and all I want to do is reach out for my phone and see what's happening on Instagram or Facebook; or look at my watch and mentally calculate how much sleep I can get if we go to bed in the next five minutes before Tyler's alarm goes off. Or forward-trip even more, calculating how many more months until he will likely sleep through the entire night and I can get a full eight hours of sleep (while that sounds unattainable right now, I did get seven hours last night!)
Because the thing is, I know these are magic moments. Never again will I be nursing my first child in quite the same way. And with this shift in mindset, I find myself noticing more and being more present. Tyler is naturally better at this than I am -- noticing things like his breathing hole on top of his head, or a hole in his lower back that it seems even our pediatrician had missed (I on the other hand spend thousands of dollars to go on meditation retreats that help me be this observant to the present moment).
With this realization, I've now gone cold-turkey on smart phones while nursing (for one thing, I know a family rule will be no phones while eating meals together, so why not start now?) Over the last few weeks, I had various "rules" for myself, like only being on my phone to use my baby feeding app (for those who know that I track absolutely everything, this should be no surprise)... then only for music. But now, it's no phone at all. And what I've discovered is I now find myself noticing the smallest details... like how much his eyelashes have grown, or how the color of his eyes changes from slate to grey blue to brown... or the cute grunts he makes or how he feeds with his whole body -- arms and legs pumping (and yes, I realize I've now officially become the parent who talks about things like how much her child's eyelashes have grown).
And then there's just language. I now simply refuse to say: "time has flown by" in my new-found refusal to fast-forward and future-trip. I have a friend whose father owns a second home in Maine. The highlight of this father's year is spending his summer there. As soon as they return home to Massachusetts, he looks forward to the next summer. Here's the catch though: as soon as he steps foot in the house in Maine, he gets sad that the summer will be over so soon.
My friend told me this story years ago now, but it's stayed with me because it so resonates. After all, I come from a family who plans where we should go for our next vacation while we're still sitting on the plane on our way to our current vacation destination.
And so when I don't catch myself, I find myself doing the same thing as my friend's father. The recent moments that have brought me the most joy (like waking up to pump at 5am this morning and hearing my father singing to Elliot in "their" room) also bring me sadness -- that their trip here is almost over and that we live so far away. Tyler's naturally better at seeing the good than I am, reminding me how much I will see them this year alone (in April, May, August, maybe the fall, and December) -- besides the fact that we still have four whole days together.
Once again, it's all about mindset. So the next time you ask me how things are, you won't be hearing that "time is flying" (though I promise you won't be hearing about Elliot's growing eyelashes either).
I can't promise that I won't show you pictures of his last milestone though -- that kindda comes with the territory. Here are some of the little big guy from his 50th last week :)
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