Over the long Chinese New Year weekend, I came across Glennon Melton‘s article, “Don’t Carpe Diem“, over at the Huffington Post. It was so beautiful, I shared it immediately with my Facebook friends.
Melton talked about the two kinds of time: Chronos and Kairos. Here’s an excerpt:
“There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.
Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day. And I cherish them.”
You can read the rest of her article here.
Since our nanny is currently enjoying her month-long vacay (8 days down, 25 to go!), and our all around maid, N, who graciously took over the nanny duties, was training her substitute, Paolo and I decided to bring Meia to Little Gym on our own.
I won’t lie: it was tiring. How a small infant can have so much energy is beyond me. Plus, someone apparently told her it was opposite day so she did her best to drive us insane. Case in point:
- When the teacher asked her to tap the tambourine, she cried and hung on to me for dear life. Later, when the teacher dismissed the class, she crawled towards the tambourine and started tapping it like there was no tomorrow. We had to pry it from her little hands and drag her away from the gym since the next class was about to start.
- Meia is also the youngest in her group - she is the only one who still can’t walk on her own. Although she does like it when we hold her by the torso and let her practice “walk.” We do this all the time at home. Sometimes, this is all she wants to do an entire afternoon, much to the dismay of our aching backs. (I don’t think I’ll ever stand straight again.) When it was time to “walk” in class, Meia started crawling. She kept complaining and wriggling out of our arms until we finally gave in and let her crawl.
- Perhaps out of consideration for Meia, the teacher asked all the students to do a bear crawl. Now, Meia is an expert bear crawler – been bear crawling (if such a term existed) for the past 3 or so months. What does she do come bear crawling time? That’s right. She stops. moving. completely. Dammit.
So by 11pm, Pao and I were zonked out. We would have slept too, had Meia not woken up every hour until 6am. Argh.
The next day, we were at it again. This time, we brought Meia to Bonifacio High Street. While Pao was parking the car, Meia and I were in Gap taking advantage of the air-con when we saw this:
http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=59902&vid=1&pid=726318&scid=726318022
Ugh. It was too cute. I had to let her try it on. And she loved it. And so, we bought it.
Babies are so difficult to take care of. They cry a lot. They need to be fed every 2-3 hours. They poop at the most inconvenient times. They crawl when they should be walking, walk when they should be crawling. Just when you thought you could sneak in a shower while they are asleep, they decide to wake up and make a terrible fuss. And no, they don’t stir just as you are about to go into the bathroom, that would be too easy. They wake up crying after you’ve taken off your clothes, stepped into the shower, and while your hair is full of shampoo.
But ask a parent how it is like to have kids. Usually, they’ll tell you it is one of the most wonderful life-altering experiences. They’re not lying. It’s just that they are remembering those moments in Kairos time and these moments more than make up for the otherwise frenetic day they just had.
It’s like going home exhausted from Little Gym, going through the pictures in your camera, and seeing this:
Meia, after a good spinach meal
Or buying an expensive pair of sunglasses for your almost 11 month old, putting it on her, and seeing this:
Artistahin
Kairos.
