Have a happy new 525,600, may you spend them all wisely

2011 is a grand gift of a new 525,600 minutes. Congratulations. Imagine all the things you could do with this present of time.

For the brand-newborn babes, these minutes will be spent in mostly eating and sleeping. By the time they have spent 84,960 minutes (two months), they will be holding up their heads and recognizing facial expressions. By the enormous count of 172,800 minutes (four months), the growing child can look at a face for 90 seconds and remember that face for up to four months. Meanwhile, he or she is ready for some real chewable chow like table food; they lose their reflexes of grasp and suck to permit the reaching for solids to stuff them unceremoniously in their open mouths. At six months, 260,640 minutes, the baby is sitting up and now has 20/20 vision to stare out at the world that he can touch only with his eyes until he starts to crawl at around eight or nine months, 393,120 minutes.

At the end of their half- million minutes, a human child has gone from a totally helpless creature to one who walks, says a few sounds, comprehends over 100 words, totally feeds himself, and is well on his way to toddlerhood. For parents, while sometimes the first 500,000 minutes are the most time-consuming and perhaps, for future security of their child, the most important, it is the accumulation of the whole 9,467,077 minutes from birth to end of 18 years that makes up the total childhood experiences; 9.5 million minutes is an incomprehensible number.

For some arrogant out-of-touch financier, if converted to dollars this would be pocket chump change. Yet it is your gift.

Sadly, not all children will be allotted the full amount. Small, extremely premature babies, or some infants with other genetic abnormalities may not make it past a few hundred or more. Likewise friends, neighbors and loved ones, you are not guaranteed all the minutes you would like.

So while the newborn has its minutes dedicated to growing and developing skills and neuron synapses at a rate of 250,000/minute, what are you going to do with your time? For the combat soldier, the fulfillment of the minutes will be when his unit is rotated back home. For the teen waiting one more year to drive or date, it is an eternity. For those on the other end staring into the eternities, it may be the most important collection of minutes they will ever experience. For the sick and the infirm, maybe the half million are a half million too painful and too many.