Elizabeth woke up at 3:14 this morning. Not crying, just... awake. That newborn sound that's half-coo, half-question mark. I heard Jenn shift first, already halfway out of bed before I could blink myself into the present tense.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "I got her."

Down the hall, bottle warmed, Elizabeth in the crook of my arm. The house at that hour is a different place — quieter than quiet, like the walls themselves are holding their breath. She ate slow, eyes open but unfocused, doing that newborn thing where they look past you into some middle distance only they can see.

And I did the math.

Not the sleep math — though that's real. Not the schedule math, or the logistics of getting Cecelia to her day while keeping a two-month-old fed and changed and held. I did the other math. The one that runs in the back of your head when you're alone with a kid at 3 A.M. and the rest of the world is still.

How many of these do I get?

If she's anything like her sister, the night feedings taper off around four months. Let's say another sixty nights. Sixty sounds like a lot until you divide it by tired, by distraction, by the pull to just get through it so you can get back to sleep. How many of those sixty will I actually be in? Not just present — awake, bottle in hand — but actually there, paying attention to the weight of her in my arms, the way her fingers curl against my chest, the specific quiet of the house at that hour?

It's the same math I'm learning to do with Cecelia. She's two and a half. She still asks me to read her books before bed, still wants me to sit on the floor and stack blocks, still grabs my hand when we walk through a parking lot. But I know — every parent knows — that there's a number attached to that. Some finite count of bedtime stories, of "Daddy, look!" moments, of her small hand trusting mine to keep her safe.

I don't know what that number is. And that's the thing that hits you at 3 A.M. with a newborn in your arms.

You can't get it back.

I'm not sentimental by nature. I'm wired for work, for output, for checking the box and moving to the next thing. But fatherhood has this way of turning the volume up on time. It makes you feel the weight of it. The fact that this exact moment — Elizabeth at eight weeks, Cecelia at two and a half, Jenn asleep down the hall, the house dark except for the kitchen nightlight — will never happen again. Tomorrow they'll be a day older. A day further from this.

I've been asking God for presence lately. Not patience — though I need that too. Not energy, though that'd help. Just presence. The ability to be where my feet are. To not spend the 3 A.M. feeding thinking about the 6 A.M. workout or the 9 A.M. call. To let sixty nights feel like sixty nights, not like a blur I'll barely remember.

Elizabeth finished her bottle. I held her upright against my chest, her chin on my shoulder, and just stood there in the kitchen. Didn't rush to put her down. Didn't check my phone. Just stood there, her warm weight against me, her breath evening out into sleep.

I don't know if I'll remember this one. But I was there for it.

That's the math I'm trying to learn. Not how to do more, or fit more in, or optimize the margins. Just how to be alive for the things that matter while they're still happening. How to let sixty feel like sixty. How to steward the time I've been given with these two little girls who won't stay little.

Jenn was still asleep when I laid Elizabeth back in the bassinet. I stood there for a second, watching her chest rise and fall, her fists curled up near her face.

Fifty-nine.

Your neighbor,
Rick