Do you remember what you had for dinner last night? Believe it or not, this age-old philosophical question relates to the core of mindful parenting. I never quite got the television commercial that aired in the 1970's and posed this question to families across the country. As you may recall, the commercial promised that its canned dinners were so delicious that if you served it, your family would be sure to remember the meal the next day. My experience is, however, that unless one is eating mindfully, the better tasting a meal, the faster it is consumed, and little of the experience is remembered. In fact, it is the abysmal meals that prove most memorable. Why? Because when we do things reluctantly, we become especially attentive to what we are doing. Having devoted so much awareness to the process, our memory of it is vivid. Remember that root canal, or being spoon-fed cough syrup as a child?

As you know, being a parent is even better than eating a good meal. But like all those delicious meals of our forgotten past, we hear so often of children: "They grow up so fast!" "It feels like just yesterday when she was a baby," and "Where did the time go?" How often have you heard, and perhaps told others, "Cherish it while it lasts?"

So let's ask ourselves: What do we remember about the times we spend (or spent) reading bedtime stories to our child? Indeed, these are sacred moments. Do we remember most of it? Just a little here and there? Or is our memory an amalgam from a collection of bedtime readings?

When people share with me mindful parenting experiences, they almost always report that time slows down. Of course, it doesn't really slow down (or does it?). But, when we are present in the moment, a beautiful thing happens -- time lapses naturally. When we bring our senses together to experience a moment, we come to life in that moment. We are no longer merely an actor whose primary job is to remember her lines and deliver them as rehearsed. We also become an observer. And because we are so much more than the one role being played at the moment, the observer in us soaks in the majesty of what is actually taking place at the moment, including who we really are and the persons, places, and things participating in the moment. When we thereafter reflect on an event, be it a birthday party, a bedtime story, or a graduation ceremony, we do so with an awareness of particulars that grounds the memory in the timeline of our lives.

The practice of mindful parenting helps slow our perception of the passage of time. But beware! Because we are not used to this, it can make us feel a little uncomfortable. Have you ever tried walking extra slow for more than three seconds? Try it and you likely will sense your fast moving thoughts telling you to speed it up. Sustain the practice for more than three seconds, if you can, and you may come to realize what's actually happening around you.

The following verse is one we can recite to ourselves while we're reading to our child. If we are not with our child, or they are grown, we can recite this verse whenever we are reading and use it a reminder to bring our thoughts to our child.