The Expansion of Time

I’ve always been a multi-tasker. But being a mom requires not only multi-tasking, but filling each day to the max. Case in point was this past weekend, which was busy with activities and ended with a time-stopping brush with death.

Saturday started with something really exciting for me: a chance to practice using my new camera on subjects other than the Bean. My friend and aspiring photographer, Sharilyn Green, invited me to a photo walk that happened to be taking place in our fair town. I was challenged to take photos of things I usually don’t capture. You can see how I did on the Gallery page.

Afterwards I popped over to see if the new cafe on Church Street, Cafe Amouri, had opened. It has! Finally—an independent coffee shop (read: not Starbucks). While there, I not only met the owner, but also a new family that had moved to town with a baby Bean’s age. I felt like a little social butterfly, meeting and greeting at the local java joint. Stay tuned for more details on my first real visit to the Cafe.

Later that evening I went to my neighbors for a girls’ night in: three moms and three baby girls under a year old. My neighbor was making traditional Russian pirozhkis. I was as happy with the food and friendship as I was about the fact that I only needed to walk a few houses down to get to the action.

Sunday started with a mad dash of grocery shopping that left me exhausted by 12:30pm. Walked into the house, fed the baby and turned back around to get to Silver Spring for a friend’s barbecue.

It’s 2:30pm and finally, time to eat some grub! We all sat outside in the wooded backyard, dodging rays of sunshine in the 100 degree heat.

All of a sudden, the sky became dark and the wind picked up. We were inside, watching what seemed to be a hurricane descending on us instantly. I watched the trees swaying as the leaves blew horizontally through the air.

This is the part where time expanded to the point of standing still: as I was watching the trees, I saw one start to fall. I thought it was headed for the house, and more specifically, for the place in the house where I had put Bean down for a nap. First I thought it wasn’t going to hit the house: then I realized that it was. I jumped up and ran to get her, reaching her just as I looked to the right and heard the tree crashing into the house behind a closed door. I thought I would see the house rip open in front of me, but the damage wasn’t that bad. The tree had fallen 10 feet away from Bean.

With the power out, so went the air conditioning. Bean proceeded to get hot and nothing would calm her down. We got her, screaming, into the car’s AC and started the harrowing journey home, which took four times longer due to the downed traffic lights.

Drew and I made it home, shoulders to our ears with stress. Hungry, we order sushi from Yirasai and called it a night at 9:45pm.

Before having the baby, I thought that at least some of my time would be filled with fun things. Yeah, there’d be baby care, but there would be the chance to relive my childhood a bit: make a mess and eat too much ice cream. While we’re thoroughly in the trenches of nurturing the baby, I’m hopeful that as Bean grows from baby to actual kid, time will expand to include the fun stuff. Perhaps a sign of things to come is the advice I got in a recent fortune cookie:

“In the midst of a busy life, take some time to be a kid again.”