When 7pm comes around I start to get excited because it’s about to be bedtime and that means I can have wine, eat my food in peace and watch TV that I find amusing. I mean, I enjoy Daniel Tiger, but a woman can only take so much.

At 7pm, my one hour countdown is on. Let’s walk Beau! Bath time! Let’s get our jams on. Ooohhh comfy jammies! Oooohhh coco (coconut water). Can we please brush our teeth, please?!

We have a routine and it works really well for us. And by the time we have brushed my daughter’s teeth (21 months) and we’re in her room, I can hear the clock ticking louder. My brain is shouting T minus 15 minutes!

She sits in the reading chair her Nana gave her, covers herself with a pink fleece blanket and settles in for Madeline. I sit just across from her on the floor so she can get a good look at the pictures in the book. I’ve read Madeline so many times now that I now read it in my own Indian-South African-English-Scottish-Dutch accent. Guys, I’m basically a professional actress.

But the other day I was having so much fun making different faces and voices, I felt like Robin Williams, and my daughter got up from her chair and paced the three steps toward me, bent over and cradled my face in her hands.

I stopped breathing, hoping that time would stand still. She continued holding my face with her sweet hands and looked deep into my eyes. Not even the air moved.

My daughter kissed my forehead and plopped back down in her pink reading chair. I was changed forever. Did that really just happen? What just happened? I wasn’t sure, but it felt REAL.

The next night, I waved my husband off bed time duties. I so desperately wanted to recreate the moment. Could it happen twice?

I sat down, cracked open Madeline, read with all my might. When your daughter fights with you over a fork, or straws, or carrying her, or not carrying her, tenderness is at a premium!

Was it me, was it my daughter? How and why were we blessed with something so profound? I took some time to try to figure out what I had done differently, but all that had really changed was that I was present.

I was not only looking at my daughter, but seeing her. Not only reading as a means to an end, but reading as a way to connect. Not only going through the paces of putting her to sleep, but I was present and grateful for having her at all.

We all get tired and run down and sad sometimes. We all get to the breaking point where all we can think about is bed time and solitude and how we want to melt into our couches.

But what if we slowed down, expected less, and enjoyed more? What if we were not only with our children but we were WITH our children? What if we said to heck with ____________, I’m going enjoy my child?

My favorite blogger, Glennon Doyle Melton, talks about chronos and kairos time, which come to us from the Greeks. Chronos is chronological time, sequential time. Kairos time is the right or opportune moment, the supreme moment. Kairos time is a passing instant when an opening appears.

OOOOHHHH….KAIROS is what I was feeling when my daughter held my cheeks in her tiny hands. And was it ever the most beautiful.

May you go so easy on yourself, mama, that you have the opportunity to feel one or two kairos moments with your kiddos today.