My 3 /12 year old daughter lives on her own time. She typically goes to sleep around 6pm and wakes up – if we are lucky – around 6am. Lately there have been a lot of 5:15am wake ups. She begins each morning with the same ritual, “Mommy, Daddy, I’m awake. Let’s go play!”
As a means of keeping our own health and sanity, my wife and I take turns getting up with her, giving the other a chance to sleep in.
Today was my turn to get up and it was a late wake up, almost 6am. After a long day yesterday of flying to Palm Springs and back to speak at a conference, I could have used about two more hours of sleep, but parenting demands that I no longer have a choice.
Saturday mornings are also the local Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building on the waterfront in San Francisco. It starts at 7:30am and if we get there early, we can park, beat the crowds and get the freshest free samples of locally grown organic everything, including things I don’t think are possible to actually make organic.
(I’m convinced that one day someone will make an organic microwave oven, but that is for a different posting)
Wanting to get there to stock up on a few supplies, I quickly moved her along to get ready to go.
Made her tea, give her a snack, morning “pit stop”, dress in warm clothes, socks and shoes on, jacket, down the stairs, to the car… We were parked and walking to the Market by 7:40am.
Great teamwork. Working together like a fine tuned machine. At this rate we could do what we needed, buy the supplies including the flowers for the week, sample the cheeses that are too expensive to actually buy, and still get home in time to make and eat breakfast before mommy woke up.
We were cruising. She listened great, stayed by my side, moved quickly with me. It was near perfection. Until… We began the walk back to the car and she found a small flower petal wedged between two rocks on the edge of the sidewalk. Then she found a washer that must have fallen out of a workman’s pocket. Then she saw the famous San Francisco parrots hanging out on a tree across the street. Then she found these bricks that were holding up a temporary fence, and was awed by the grass growing up in the holes in them. She had to step on every one of them.
I’m watching the time. We have 7 minutes to get back to the car or the parking fee doubles. Now it is 6. I find myself getting impatient. Two more flower petals and a red string… 5… Someone stops to compliment her hat and she has to chat with them too… 4…
My guess is every parent reading this, can relate.
I was about to snap and just then, I stopped myself.
What am I doing? I am thinking about where I want to get to, what needs to get done today, the schedule we need to keep to get to the party at the park today. All things that aren’t happening now. I am not living in the present. She is.
I’m in my head, stressing out because of time.
She’s in the world, living in real time.
What really matters? Should I rush her to put her attention on what isn’t happening, or should I just let her take in the world as it is? Is it really that urgent that we are home by 8:45? Is rushing her and interrupting her experience of being really awake and connected with the world, just to save $6.50 on parking, really worth it?
Again, in my head asking all these questions, not out in the world with her… but I’ve slowed down and let her be engaged with life, connected with the world, operating in real time, not human constructed artificial time.
We make it back to the car with less than a minute to spare – without rushing. I am calm now. She was all along.
I get her in her car seat, strapped in, secure, load the groceries, get in myself, clip in my seatbelt…
Then suddenly, “Daddy, I have to tinkle! I have to tinkle RIGHT NOW!”
Nature calls, and always on it’s own time. Fight it as much as we want, and it always comes back to win. I give up. And I’m so much more alive because of it. How lucky to have her there - and the intention my wife and I hold to preserve this in her as much as we can - to remind me.
