Kairos Again

Do you, lovies, remember my suggestion to read what the all-knowing Warrior, Glennon, wrote about Kairos?  Kairos is a Greek word that means a charged or an opportune moment.

I'm always the one who vows to immediately transform my entire being and way of life after reading an article only to forget about it all an hour later.  This lesson, however, magically stuck with me.

I had a Kairos yesterday morning.  After about 2 weeks of Ollie waking us up before our alarm rang and our repeated lessons about quiet time in the morning (in vain), I heard him wake up and toddle to his door.  I cringed, I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I heard him open our door and pad ever so quietly over to my side of the bed.  I looked up and he laid his head on the bed.  I whispered, "Wanna get into bed with Mama?"  He nodded.  I dragged him up, tucked him in and watched him put his thumb in his mouth and roll over.  It was...ethereal.  I turned toward him into the pillow and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. Here was this darling, sleep-tousled, sweet-breath that hadn't started to decay-smelling, warm boy with his ragged nose in-and-out and his thumb sucking nuk-nuk-nuk right in my arms and I couldn't stop staring at him.  It was awe-some.  It was Kairos.

It would have lasted a lot longer if he hadn't also been kneading my full bladder with his toes.  

But that's all Kairos is - a fleeting minute of really, really fantastic.

Like Glennon says, it's important in the giant hum-drum, tick-tock of an average day to remember those Kairos.  It helps me stay sane when I read all those social media articles on how you have to remember everything and stay in the moment and kids are only young once and you'll wish for this day back again which is meant to be inspirational but only serves to make you feel worthless.  I tell myself, Okay.  I will aim to remember one Kairos moment each day and maybe forget another time during the day when one of us was a complete a-hole.

(Like this morning when poor Oliver just really wanted Mom to keep playing with him instead of going to do her make-up.  Sad emoticon.  Hello GUILT.)

(Or later this morning when the little jerk ran into the street and I froze, terrified in my spot, only managing to dig down deep into my diaphragm to growl - slash - yelp out an appropriate, "OLIVER! GET. BACK. HERE!" After which he came running up, smiled out a "Hi!"and tried to slither out of my grasp up into his carseat so that he could escape the broken record of lectures that were delivered on the way to daycare.)

Okay, so maybe I won't forget those moments of regret or paralyzing fear anytime soon.  But I also won't forget that beautiful moment in the early morning yesterday when my Little wanted one more snuggle before the sun came up.  That's a Kairos that's worth remembering for a long, long time.