Time

“It’s time to get ready for bed,” Hubby calls to his youngest.

“But Dad!” he declares, emphasizing the "b" and "d" sounds as he walks down the hall to look at the clock on the DVR. He tilts his head to one side and says, “it’s only 6:27.” As if we didn't know.

“Yeah,” Hubby responds, “your bedtime is in three minutes. Go brush your teeth.” Kerry stomps back down the hall and into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He makes it obvious that he’s not happy about having to get ready now.

Why are kids so precise when it comes to time? It’s the funniest thing. They have no concept of averaging or estimating time; everything needs to be right at that minute. One example of this is the clock in my car. It’s about seven minutes ahead, not that I really planned it that way, it just happened. I don’t mind because sometimes I forget that it’s ahead and I end up with seven minutes to spare if I’m running late. Kenny and Kerry, however, always begin a discussion about time when they get into my car. Kerry, who loves to play with numbers, likes to point out how many minutes are left in the hour, while Kenny likes to talk about what time it really is. This discussion can go in several directions. Sometimes it ends with each of them happy about their interpretation of the time, or it can become an argument about what time it really is. “Who cares?” tends to be Kenny’s latest phrase, which seems to settle things. So middle school!

Aside from being so precise, they don’t seem to believe it’s necessary to do things ahead of time to lessen their workload. Kenny has grasped this concept, and in fact embraces it at times; thankfully! However, Kerry, who’s in second grade, gets a whole packet for his spelling words, one page a night, and refuses to do more than what he has to. Well, when it was basketball season, Kenny would have basketball games after school later on in the week, so we’d try to get Kerry to do an extra page earlier on so he didn’t have to worry about it after we would get home after the game. Sometimes it’s nearly 6:00 by the time we would get home, which means that leaves us little time to make supper, eat and have him get ready for bed, never mind have him do his homework. Talk about tears! He just couldn’t understand why we wanted him to do this extra work on a Monday when he had all week to do it. Poor kid, it felt like we were punishing, or even torturing him. Perhaps we’ve scarred him for life when we’re just trying to be practical.