No Time Like the Present

Last weekend, a friend of mine, Rebecca Larson, said something that really struck a chord with me. "When you have a baby," she said, "the days seem to last forever, the weeks go by more quickly and the months fly by." That really makes sense to me, when I stop and think about it.

I've always looked forward to weekends and time off from work, to do what I wanted. The weekends always seemed to pass too quickly, though. Since John Patrick was born, however, on Friday afternoons I feel almost giddy, like school is about to be dismissed for the summer. Just knowing I have the entire weekend to spend with Jude and John Patrick puts me in an ebullient mood at the end of the day.

And here's the thing. The weekends really do seem to drag by, which is amazingly nice. It seems like we have so much time on our hands, all to spend with John Patrick. There's such a pleasant rhythm to our activities . . . feeding him, burping him, changing his diapers, playing with him and watching him sleep. The cycle repeats itself, over and over, and somehow that's very reassuring to me.

Here's another thing that's really nice. Before John Patrick was born, Jude and I would literally sit down each Sunday evening and review our calendars to see what the coming week looked like. On many occasions, one or both of us would have activities scheduled after work during the week. As a result, we would jealously guard the few weeknights when neither of us had anything on our schedule.

I was telling Jude the other night, it's totally different now. Although it may change when Jude returns to work, at present there's rarely a weeknight when either of us has to be anywhere other than home after work. It's great, too, because we're completely focused on being at home and spending time with John Patrick.

For us, there truly is no time like the present.