As I straightened my hair this morning, a feverish and snotty Harper stood with me. Normally she runs away during this time, but today she spent time with me partly because she didn’t feel good and partly because she wanted to negotiate her TV watching schedule for the day.
Me: “I’m right here Harper. Please speak quietly because baby C is still asleep.”
Harper, with no change in her volume: “Mommy, can I play with your alligator?” (Alligator is our word for my straightening iron.)
Me: “When you get older, you can straighten your hair with my alligator.”
Harper: “Mommy, when you get to be smaller, you can play with my Dora toy.”
Her logic is infallible.
Time is hard for kids. When is older? How do you explain that you get older but not younger? When exactly is older? How do you measure the years? Measure the minutes? I think children start to understand around 7. Or at least in my house, Will can understand time passing. His main motivator to understanding time is that he wants to play x-box. He can tell time enough to know when it is too early to ask to play and too late to start a game.
Abby is five and is still having a hard time understanding. Her favorite store is Five Below. She wants to go all the time, every day if I would let her.
Abby: is it time to go to Five Below?
Abby: is it time to go to Five Below now?
Abby: Can we leave now!?!
Me: Abby, we can go in a few minutes. I still need to feed baby C. Look at the clock Abby, we will go when the clock says 11:00.
Abby: How long is that?
Me, trying to do the math in my head while nursing the baby: um…about 35 minutes.
Abby: Can we go now?
Me: No, when the clock says 11:00.
Abby: Oh my gosh, that is forever!!! We haven’t been to Five Below in a long, long time!!
Me: Abby, we went last weekend. Remember we bought the string craft? (or the sticker craft or the shrink dink craft, I lose track).
Part of me wants her to understand so that we don’t have the whiny, annoying conversations that leave us both frustrated. They take all the fun out of going to Five Below. The other part of me doesn’t want the loss of innocence that comes when they are bound by time.
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