Babies need immediate action. Everything else has to be dropped, halted, stopped in the middle; frozen in mid-sentence, mid-step, mid-thought.

I had forgotten about baby time.

Because I no longer live with children, I now think my thoughts in numbered chained-together lists of “the next 3-4 things I plan to do, in this order”.  

And it throws me all out of kilter to have to stop in the middle of my mental “to do”. 

My mind protests!  “Can’t it wait just a minute? I am putting lunch out! And I had planned to empty the dishwasher and wipe down the counters to help Hanah’s parents!”

But no, Baby Hanah needs her diaper changed/attention/a new outfit/a change of position/distraction/food/a toy picked up off the floor (multiple times)/to be rocked to sleep.

And Hanah will not wait.

Hanah lives a life well lived; completely absorbed in each moment….  Until the next moment comes, in which the old moment, like last moment’s toy, gets dropped, discarded, completely forgotten.

Hanah plunges those around her back into a life of complete absorption in the moment, complete surrender of everything else to the needs of a baby.  Hanah plunges us back into baby time.

I used to live with this notion of time. But I forgot it long ago.

I am re-learning about baby time. Re-learning to put aside my to-do lists and savor the moment.

Hanah’s grandfather gets it more easily than I do. The minute we walk through the door, Hanah comes first with him.

I take a little longer. Like my joints that are a little creaky and stiff, my stiff notions of the best way to spend my time need a little lubricating.  Can I help fold clothes?  Take out the garbage?

But soon, I surrender to baby time.

Today it is not long before I hold a sleeping baby in my lap, a baby who has one chubby arm thrown out sideways and completely covering the dial on my watch.  Today it is not long before I realize that the absolute best way to spend this time, this sleepy after-lunch time, is to rock a warm, sleeping baby, look out the window at the neighborhood, and think of nothing at all.