enjoying every moment.

When I was a kid, my parents, in an effort to raise healthy, conscientious children, grew an organic garden, cooked with whole grains, and forbade us from eating refined sugar. As a result, my relationship with sugar was complicated. I coveted it. I wanted it passionately, and on the rare occasions when I got it, I savored it. I knew it had to last, because that goodness, that delicious, stomach-warming, mouth-humming delight is over all too fast, and after all, any refined-sugar-deprived kid will tell you: you never know when your next fix treat will come along. I ate cake crumb by crumb. I held candy on my tongue like a precious jewel, making it last far longer than any of my peers. I nibbled cookies with a trance-like reverential discipline that I imagine can be compared only to tantric sex. Perhaps this doesn't sound like such a bad thing, but I am prone to extremism. As each bite brought me towards the end, a sort of panic set in, making me hyper-aware of each morsel passing my lips. Each treat begins rapturously, with the enjoyment levels peaking around a third of the way through, then slowly declining with each bite. It's really hard to be in the moment when you know that the moment is finite.

I have a baby. He is the most beautiful, perfect little thing I have ever known. I love him with a force that I never dreamed possible; a love that leaves my nerves raw and my heart aching. I could stare into his enormous eyes with their impossibly long lashes forever, just waiting for him to burst into that gummy, drooly, fat-cheeked grin. I want to eat him up. Being a mom is a hundred times better than I expected, and I knew what to expect when I was expecting.

There's something about a baby that makes people want to drop knowledge on new mom. By and large I don't mind. I did my homework, and my parenting choices are well-reasoned. I'm confident, but open to other ideas. Honestly, there is pretty much nothing I'd rather talk about than my little boy. But there is one small thing...

Every parent I've encountered across the board has had the same piece of wisdom for me: "Enjoy every moment of this time, because it goes so fast."

Really? That's what you want to say to me? Saying something like that to a person of my temperament is akin to telling a hypochondriac that one of his moles looks "funny." Okay, first of all, you think I don't know that? Every morning I feel as though I wake up to a different baby. I sit up at night, smoothing the hair off his forehead as he eats, and I SWEAR I can see him growing. Let me tell you, there have been many tearful, 3AM renditions of "In My Life" crooned to my little boy. I feel as though I just got home from the hospital, and suddenly I have to go back to work in THREE WEEKS?!? It's the cookie conundrum all over again!! My maternity leave pleasure peaked sometime around 4 weeks, and ever since then, the anxiety levels have been increasing incrementally. Suddenly, I look into his little two-month-old face, and I see a teenager who hates me, college freshman moving away from me, a twenty-eight year old getting married. I see me at 40, 50, oh my GOD get the paper bag, I'm hyperventilating!

And another thing. There are days when I get thrown up on more times than I can keep track of. Days where I think to myself, 'is it even worth changing this shirt?' as curdy barf trickles down my back. Days when he's crying that awful nasal keening wail, butting me with his head, and clawing my extremely tender chest with his razor-sharp baby talons. Those days I do NOT savor, and then I feel bad because we have this FINITE amount of time together, and I should love every little thing about him, even when he pees on the wall as soon as I take his diaper off. Time is fleeting, after all.

As an adult, my relationship with sugar has more in common with crack-addled mania. The adult me around sugar is, well, like an amped-up kid (who was not me as a kid) in a candy store. See, I'm terrified of the end, of having nothing left, so I'm making up for time that I'm losing. The way things are going, I see one of two things happening: either I become the kind of helicopter mom that accompanies her son to prom (and possibly paves the way for his budding life as a serial killer), or I somehow manage to diffuse the ticking time bomb (see what I did there?) in my brain and live in the moment. Whatever happens, take heed: refrain from telling new (and most likely extremely hormonal) moms about how fast it all goes. She will tailspin into irrational panic and despair. Instead, try something more along the lines of: "every year is more fun than the last!" Otherwise, I will consider it an invitation to discuss the texture, smell, and color of my son's diaper contents. Don't test me people. I have a colorful vocabulary.