Living in the Moment

My husband and I weren't seeing eye to eye yesterday. A classic 'women are from mars, men are from venus' situation, I wondered how we would ever see each other's point of view clearly and how we could stop talking long enough to listen. I'll admit it. I can hold a grudge. Not for long, I mean not more than a six hour time period but long enough. Long enough to realize I'm not always living life in the moment.

My son Miles is almost three months old and already I envy how quickly his frown can turn into a smile or how a fussy state of mind can become a laugh in no time at all. These days he is smiling constantly, trying to crawl and showing a wide array of emotion: happiness, sadness, glee, frustration, content, tiredness, alertness. What he doesn't posess is a awareness of past and future. All he knows is the present moment. All he knows is now.

Today he cried miserably because of a dirty diaper. While he was yelling I thought, oh no. For the next several minutes my patience will be tested. He'll cry and shout and frantically bat his arms and legs in the air, showing me how upset he's become. So this time instead of being stressed and changing him in silence I decided to distract him with my best rendition of 'the itsy-bitsy spider'. Within seconds his frown turned into a smile and his teary cheeks dried up like magic. If he could produce words, I'm sure he would have joined in singing with me.

'...down came the rain and washed the spider out, up came the sun and dried it all away and the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again.' Once again I am reminded that he doesn't live in the past. Something so simple as singing a song in a cheerful and soothing tone can turn it all around. I wish for my son that he always has the ability and perspective of living in the moment.

As for me? I wish that as a mother, I will be alert enough to always see my son for who he is,and use every challenge as an opportunity to remember to live in the moment, with him, with motherhood, with myself.