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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

The Baby/Time Continuum...

..."these are the voyages of the Starship Mommy...to explore new worlds, to boldly go where no woman has gone before..."

OK, I admit it. I'm a Trekkie.

I've never gone to a convention, never dressed as a Klingon, but I love love love watching re-runs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine.

I particularly like the episodes in which the crew members find themselves in a "temporal anomaly." In such occurrences, crew members get caught up in time loops, experiencing the same events again and again, or people/planets/species/worlds get wiped out from history and change the course of evolution, etc etc etc. Then of course our fearless crew solves the mystery and saves the galaxy.

I'm experiencing my own "temporal anomaly." With the advent of having a baby, a woman's concept of time is totally, utterly, changed. Instead of days passing in hours, days pass in burps, poos, and naps. Instead of weeks being marked by particular events, (Sunday we go to church, Monday we have band practice, Thursday we go out for burgers,) they are measured in inches of baby growth. Instead of months being measured in weeks, they are measured in developmental milestones.

While a day still has 24 hours in it, I seem not to get as much done. But that depends on how you look at it. I may not get the laundry finished and dinner cooked, but I've contributed to the physical, intellectual, and emotional development of a tiny little person. I'd say that's a pretty big accomplishment!

Lancelot was born on November 28th, 2006. How can it possibly be March already? And yet, how can it be that he hasn't been here forever?

It's a paradox. A temporal anomaly.

Can anyone truly conceive of the meaning of time? If you can, I'd love to be enlightened...


4 comments:

Mamacita Tina said...

Time is a constant blur for me. I can't believe Laurel's 13 months, and Ian, sniff, is 2 1/2 years. I look back at photos and videos, and think wow, where has all that time gone? You know how matter is neither created nor destroyed, I wonder if the same is true of time?

Damselfly said...

All I know about Star Trek is "You have the con." And as the mama, you have the con! Although you may not be able to control the time....

Anne/kq said...

I know EXACTLY what you mean. Time goes slower and yet faster than it ever has when you have a little one.

Not a Trekker, but I'm into enough other SciFi franchises and spec fic stuff that I'm not gonna mock you for it. ;)

Unknown said...

My perception of the time continuum after my daughter was born: LONGEST YEAR OF OUR LIVES. Seriously. But after that, time has flown. ;-)

Glad to see your first months of adjustment went smoother than ours!