The Bub in the Belly

Ryan at Old Town White Coffee restaurant (please forgive the drool on his chin)

I'm finally ready with my new year resolution.

This year, I resolve to live in the moment. Too much time is spent on the future - planning, wondering, wishing, worrying, hoping, dreaming. Too much time is also spent on the past - yearning, complaining, regretting, reminiscing. I want to live in the present, to be grateful for each day, to be content and happy, to be at peace with the past and to have confidence that tomorrow will bring only what we can handle.

On our last visit to Ryan's paediatrician, when we mentioned that Ryan was being quite sticky, Dr Ngiam explained that, at this stage, Ryan has no concept of the future. He doesn't yet understand that, if we leave his sight, we're not gone forever and we'll be back later. There is no "later", "afterwards", "wait" or "next time". There is only here and right now.

Isn't that wonderful? To seize each moment of each day wholeheartedly, to have the simple faith that the future will be manageable, to have the wisdom that the past is done.

To be fair to myself, I don't spend a lot of time on the past. Sometimes I do think to myself, gosh, how fast time flies, Ryan is almost 2 years old. But I don't wish to go back to Ryan's infant days - I would miss the person he has become too much.

However, last year, I did spend a lot of time thinking about Ryan's future - whether I was putting him in the right enrichment programmes, whether I was giving him enough opportunity and exposure for optimum learning, whether I was giving him the right toys for his development, whether I should be sending him to pre-school and which pre-school that would be.

This year, instead of living so many years ahead of each day, I'm going to just focus on the moment. This moment.