Six Months Time

Time confuses me. Events that happened several years ago still feel like they just occurred. For instance, I have not worked at KOMU-TV for nearly a decade. But I can still recall the scent of the makeup I had to wear when I appeared on air. I haven't attended a rock concert for ages yet I can still feel the ringing of amplified guitars in my ears if I try. On the other hand, things that occurred a short time ago feel so distant they might as well have been a dream. I can barely remember the feel of my tiny newborn babies, so small and delicate. Heck, some nights I can't remember what I ate for breakfast that morning. It's as if time is pulling a practical joke on me.

Six months have passed since Rachel and I were blessed with Micah and Malorie. The time has been either a blur or a grind. I'm not sure. I vaguely remember keeping a feeding log and waking up every three hours. But I vividly recall my son being hooked up to a ventilator, so much so that I still get a pit in my stomach when Micah coughs, wheezes or makes a funny noise. It seems like years since I measured a bottle in milliliters, but wasn't it yesterday that I was sporting an itchy beard? Time punishes me for taking it for granted. It moves painstakingly slow when the babies are fussy and blasts by during fun times.

Time may hate me, but it has been kind to our tiny Princess Malorie, who in six months time has grown to 16 lbs and 12 oz. She is in the 70th percentile for weight and the 100th percentile for height, at 27 and a half inches. Apparently it's time to teach her to dribble a basketball. She grunts when she eats and talks to herself when alone in a car seat, but otherwise she's quiet most of the time. Mal can sit on her own for up to five minutes at a time and has watched the Baby Einstein sign language video 84 thousand times.

This time around, Mighty Micah tapered his torrid ascent though the growth chart. He now weighs 19 lbs, 2 oz, which ranks him in the 80th percentile for weight. He is also tall for his age, leading me to believe that he will be taller than me by the time he is four years old. Every once in a while we catch Micah scooting across a play mat, dragging his face and lifting his butt like an inchworm, but he stops every time we try to get it on tape. You could set a watch based on Micah's laugh, which erupts from his tiny frame about every ten seconds.

Apparently it's high time for both babies to have a social life. They had a play date today with Natalie's daughters Tessa and Jillian and our friend Sarah's son Ryan. Ryan and Tessa are both nearly two years old, but I'm sure Natalie thinks she's only been a parent for a few weeks and Sarah thinks it's been roughly twenty-five years. That's because time messed with them too.

I'm pretty sure I will wake up tomorrow and still be twenty-eight, but I wouldn't be surprised if time had passed and I was forty. Time will continue to confound me. For instance, it feels like I have been writing this post for quite some time. But if I don't make time to write this stuff down, I will lose the time I want to keep. And now that we are all suitably confused by time, the time has come to end our discussion of time.