Tuesday 14 July 2015

Living in the Moment


Over the past couple years, I’ve heard it time and time again: Live in the moment. Be present. Time goes so fast. Children grow so fast. And for a while, I didn’t really understand what that all meant; when you have two babies at the same time, you find most days aren’t spend enjoying the moment but rather moving through each moment as quickly as possible in order to get to bedtime. I remember thinking a few weeks after the girls had come home from the hospital “if only there was a fast-forward button for life, and I could skip ahead to the fun stuff.” It wasn’t until their first birthday that I realized with a jolt that time HAD flashed forward, at blinding speed.

          With that revelation, I vowed to enjoy every minute of their second year… Some things, however, are easier said than done. Once again, many times throughout the past twelve months I’ve found myself filthy, exhausted, still in my pajamas and sitting on a pile of broken crayons, wondering desperately “is the day over yet?” It’s a struggle to be present and appreciate all the moments when sometimes those moments are full of tantrums, sleep regressions, days where you wear someone else’s bodily fluids for hours, and countless nights spent cleaning a house up of children’s clutter only to realize it’s all going to be a mess again when everyone gets up. Sometimes, it feels like Groundhog Day, living and reliving the same chaotic schedule, and you find yourself wondering (as Billy Murray’s character did) “well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.

          But lately, it’s finally hitting me: my girls are growing up. I know, I know, they’re only 2. But they’re singing, dancing, giggling, slimming long-limbed little people, who have a million different moods and are constantly expressing their opinions. They aren’t babies anymore, and I’m really beginning to comprehend that their dependence on me is slowly slipping away as they age; like water, I find I’m futilely trying to hold onto it, only to watch it trickle between my fingers. And some days that makes me feel really helpless; I know I can’t stick them in a Rubbermaid bin to stop them from growing, but now and then it’s tempting.

          But that is where living in the moment comes in. Recently, while I was browsing social media on my phone, one of my daughters whined, grabbed my hand, and tried to drag me off the couch. At first, I was annoyed, until she did it again and again every time I picked up my phone; she wanted me to be present, and to pay attention to her. Suddenly, that’s when it hit me: living in the moment doesn’t mean enjoying every single minute of parenting, because that’s impossible. Rather, it means CHOOSING to enjoy my kids when they give me the opportunity to. It means playing with them when they’re happy, not just as a distraction when they’re sad. It means tickling them as often as possible because one day those big baby-belly laughs will disappear forever. It means instead of feeling irritated that the child on me is pinning my arms and won’t let me get my coffee, realizing that eventually I’ll wake up to children who won’t want my lap, or will want someone else’s instead. The truth is these moments are painfully fleeting, and one day I’ll be an empty nester, looking out the window wondering where the time went, and longing to have just one more day with them as my little girls. And when that day comes, I don’t want to be filled with regret. I don’t want to look back on all the times I spent on my computer or phone rather than with my kids… sure, photos are great, but memories are better, and you don’t make many glued to a screen. 

          That doesn’t mean I’m going to try to be a perfect parent, but rather it means something infinitely better: I’m going to try to be a PRESENT parent. I’m going to dance to silly songs and do all the actions to “Mister Sun” even though it makes me want to kill myself; I’m going to run through the sprinkler with them even though it’s really friggen cold; I'm going to make shapes out of playdough even though I hate the way it gets stuck under my fingernails, and I’m going to read Robert Munsch books so many times that I’ll end up with several memorized, running on repeat through my brain all day like a terrible techno song.

In short, I’m going to do my best pay attention while they want me to, because eventually they won’t. And that, I think, will make all the difference.