A sunny morning starts the day in which I eagerly anticipate getting on with more editing of book number two in my Somewhat Silly Story series. I'm pretty excited about this one, liking it more than the first story and really hopes that it helps to spread the word of the books.
But, before any book-work can be done, there's the small matter of two boys to deal with. The first is my almost-10-year-old son, who needs to be ushered off to school. The second is the youngster, the 21-month-old golden retriever that needs a walk.
This morning, my son woke up on his own, easily fifteen minutes earlier than the earliest we would go and roust him from bed. The last two nights, he's been sleeping on the floor of his room. This, coupled with a recent desire to see how long he can hold his breath, has my wife puzzled. I have an easy explanation. "He's 9." The answer seems to satisfy her.
Because he's up and at them and rarin' to go, he's falling prey to his most-consistent fallacy. On mornings like this, he falls under the delusional attitude of, "Oh, we got plenty of time." And, indeed, if he wakes up as early as he did, then indeed there is plenty of it. But, what he often fails to realize, time and time again, is that "plenty of time" is a self-correcting problem. As he sits with his toys in the morning sunshine, simulating yet another battle of one kind or another, the sands of time are trickling away. As he plays with the Star Wars pen that came in my box of Cheerios, the clock ticks on. As he discusses and debates and sometimes argues with me about how cold/warm the day is going to be and what sort of clothing is appropriate for the weather, time marches on.
So, inevitably, we come to that point where I announce that it's time to get to school. "What?!" comes his cry of shocked and even hurt surprise. It's as if I somehow conspired against him, sneakily whispering to the clocks of the house and convincing them to move the minute hand ahead when my son wasn't looking. I've grown so tired of this angry outburst of his, I've taken to pretending I don't understand his intentions and act is if he's saying "What?" because he didn't hear what I said.
"IT'S TIME ... TO GO TO ... SCHOOL!" I'll dramatically shout, cupping my hands around my mouth to amplify my voice.
"I know! I heard you!" is the usual reply, most likely followed by some sort of grunt of disgruntlement.
Ah, kids. I can often be heard expressing the opinion that children will the best, and worst, thing that ever happen to you. If he's going to continue to act all hurt that somehow it's time for bed, or time for school, or time for dinner, then I'm going to continue to find different ways to torment him. It's probably a built-in human survival instinct. Once I build my time-machine, I'm going to enjoy going back in time and enjoy watching pre-historic parents tease their children as a way of blowing off the steams of frustration.
"IT'S TIME ... TO GO TO ... BUILD THE PYRAMID!"
