Once Upon a Time

sometime, always everywhere

We adults grew up to respect, revere and kneel at the mercy of Time. It is,  “of the essence,” “money,” it “heals all wounds” and with it one should “make haste not waste.”

To a kid, time is poop.

If they actually flushed, they’d happily send dozens of hours a day right down the toilet.

Watch the confusion on their faces when they wake up. They wander around, until something or someone halts their trajectory toward not-a-damn-thing, and in the direction of something productive.

To an adult, time and productivity is the shit.

We thrill over the inverse relationship we enjoy between the two concepts. If adults accidentally flushed time, we’d certainly dive into the toilet with a baggie to salvage what shards we could. We’d grasp for a sliver to resume our forward momentum, or at least to add those squandered minutes to our lives. To our skin or teeth or bones or whatever else is rapidly aging.

For the child time stretches indefinitely before them; they don’t have the experience of time lapsing to provide the kick in the ass that we, sadly, are not allowed to give them. They are simply inert until prodded otherwise and it’s damn hard to do. Our adult expediency clashes with their moving at the speed of moss.

Of all the irritating things they do at their utter leisure – and I include the things that they accomplish by accident – finishing a meal because it was time for the next one; ending an online video game when you turned off the modem – there is one event that happens so staggeringly slowly I can feel my hair grow.

Children seem, despite our very best, mediocre and worst efforts, not to have even a tinkly inkling of the minutes and physical exertions required to: Leave. The. House. As in, depart. Vamanos. Exit the door with keys, wallet, head and whatever else is needed to get where they are going.

Of course we do, finally, leave the house, on more than one occasion every day, but not on my terms. This lack of control lends to adults, in addition to anxiety, a fair number of shades borrowed from the rainbow. Most mornings I register at fuchsia and move efficiently toward my medical condition, Purple Fury.

When running late, parents are forced to walk the fence, knowing that every minuscule thing we do sets irrevocable precedents, ruins our children’s lives or, makes us more late. Does the parent: Point out missing pants or leave right now? Comment on the Sea Monkeys’ new iPod or just leave now. Remember aloud that in fact there isn’t any school today – or just leave now and hope they’ll figure it out.

Whatever, “Kids! Let’s Go!” “NOW!”

Grappling with the subsequent guilt for being irritable and manipulative, we vow to never let the situation happen again and while our children will spend the rest of the day impatiently counting the minutes until their next birthday we will be left to plot all the ways in which we could really have “done a better job of getting out the door this morning.”

We start by announcing it to our short-statured carpool audience. “Tomorrow morning, kids we’re going to do a much better job of getting out the door. I don’t want us to be rushing around forgetting things and me tearing you limb from ..(oooh, did I say that out loud?)…no, what I mean is I hate all the tearing around the house looking for lost shoes and library books.”

After school, there’s more of the same. “You’re going to bed early because we’re getting up early and you’ll pack your lunches tonight so we don’t have to worry about it tomorrow, and just to be sure I want you both ready to Walk. Out. That. Door. At seven.

The next morning, everything runs as smoothly as a breakfast smoothie and you are ready to walk out the door at 7! Finally, we’re on…we, we? Where is everyone?

“Mommy I don’t have a sna-aackk! Where’s my library book? I don’t have any pants! Can I wear my new jacket? Yaaay! Do you know where it is? Where’s my iPooooddd?!”

Aha. You came prepared. Like a genie wafting craftily out of it’s bottle, you address every issue and BAM! “Let’s (fucking) go!”

It’s a daily occurrence this mission-critical leaving of the house. So, why the conundrum about actually getting out? One day I realized that it is actually us versus them and, in addition to being evil savants, they speak a completely different language not taught in parenting books. (The Illuminati and possibly Justin Bieber are in on it.)

When the adult says, for example, “Get dressed, please.”

This is heard as I hope you’re comfortable on the couch.

“Hurry up and finish your breakfast.” = Milk? My thought exactly. It is time for another bowl of cereal.

“Have you brushed your teeth?” Synonymous, in kid speak with Why don’t you try doing that ponytail that makes you cry with frustration?

“Don’t forget your backpack” is Now would be a super time to play with the cat.

When you say, “Kids! We’re leaving in 2 minutes so I need you to be ready to go,” their brain translates Don’t you dare move a muscle. Wait until you hear mommy’s keys rattle for the 37th time, and not a key-rattle sooner.

“Get your shoes on, we’re leaving now!”

The child mystically hears my real thought: But not right away, because I want to experience the wonder that passes over your face as you search for your shoes. I yearn to see you light up with recognition as you spot the them on top of the curtain rod where they landed yesterday, all while I weep quietly by the door, digging my car key into my wrist, as you painstakingly un-knot, and then re-knot each shoe with camel-like zeal.

The language barrier escalates with our collective frustration. There is always one request that you could never have predicted because for your very life you don’t even know what the hell the kid is talking about and they mumble it in between hysterical gulps of air while sinking to the floor in a classic, ‘…and I’m-certainly-not-moving-until-I-find-it’ posture. “Mommeeee! I don’t have my handwoven dreamcrusher that I made in Indian Princesses!” Your whaaaaa? “You KNOW, the one I made at the meeting? ReMEMBER? I SHOWED you and then I put it RIGHT THERE. And now it’s GONE. And I need it!”

There’s no way to win this so you tell her you saw it in the car.

We are at a crossroads on what the hell to do. Some doctors will tell you that your children are just “really good at being 5 or 7 or 10.” That there’s a reason we think of children as footloose and fancy free. That it’s the parents’ responsibility to oversee dates, times and obligations.  Which means I am not a tightly-wound bitch whose reaction to schedules and time commitments make me insane. I am just really good at being 40. Ish.

Yet, this acknowledgment of their brilliance at being little pests and my slick impersonation of someone being 40-ish doesn’t get me to work on time.

It doesn’t get anything done at the time “good” parents are supposed to have things completed, like Bed Time. Parents are always lying about what time they get their kids to bed. Why? Because judgment waits in the sidelines for sleep slackers.

Nevermind that you know your kids need sleep. That you have provided beds and pillows. Pajamas, blankies, lovies, story time, a glass of water, a monster check, 14 kisses and kisses for every plush toy in view of the child. Never mind there is a bed time and that you have been working since school let out to achieve it. But it never happens the way you planned. Why? Language barrier again.

“Goodnight sweetheart,” is interpreted as Tell me all about your day and don’t leave out a single thing!

“See you in the morning!” triggers Mommy, ‘Knock knock…’

“Sweet dreams, I love you” is heard as a challenge to begin reciting Green Eggs And Ham by heart and faster than they did it last night.

“One more kiss, but this is the last one,” invites the nagging questions on every child’s mind, about where hair came from, why we drive on the right side of the road or the organic constitution of dirt.

For the child, mornings, afternoons, days, weeks, holidays and vacations loom in the abstract and hover with the promise of passage beginning on some unspecified day or hour and ending “after that.” Book report deadlines, math homework, airplanes departing are dismissable. You can set the clocks ahead, behind, in-between and the only indicator of time with any authority for a child is that a friend shows up. A TV show starts or ends. A Youtube video was just posted 14 minutes ago. Or, a snow day is imminent.

Urgency does not exist except when you have minutes ago embarked on an 8-hour car ride. A snow day will inspire marine-like efficiency, and a readiness you might otherwise see on an Olympic starting block. They will learn and remember like a steel trap that the movie starts at 8 and begin asking at 5:30 “when are we going?” (Not till I’m sure the previews are over! Shhhh…) They will recognize dinner time if you tell them to clean their room at which point they will inform you they’ll do it right after dinner. If they arrive at a birthday party before cake is served, they consider themselves early.

I’ll just excuse myself one more time for the harping and the nagging. If the brain doctors are right, I am really good at being my age and my kids, they are, well, spectacular at being theirs. Congratulations to all of us. We are awesomely late to everything!

Listen my dear, sluggish, children. Unlike the early bird, you may never get the worm. But maybe the getting to the worm is the most important part and we should find out together. From now on, I will attempt  – during the day – to discuss hair, Western driving trends, and dirt. I will stop to count the legs on caterpillars as long as it means we’ll miss the movie previews. I won’t pull the car out of the garage until you are all the way in it, and I won’t make you tuck and roll as I decelerate past the school in the mornings. We will read Green Eggs and Ham slowly with pictures. Maybe this way, we can all live in the present. Because, if there’s anything a kid does fast, it’s grow up.