"We Need to Hurry"

Vera sees the world differently than I do.  She thinks about stars hiding behind trees as we drive home.  I think about how long the grass has gotten.

Probably the biggest difference is the way we understand time.

For me, time is the enemy.  We are always at odds.  There is not enough time.  I am never on time.  This is taking too much time.

For Vera, time is like air.  It is free.  A gift.

She understands in a way I do not that there is no way to control time.  You can't speed it or slow it.  You can't manipulate it or master it.  And why would you, anyway?  Time is simply life being lived.

Here's the problem: Vera's two-year-old exuberance to explore the outer reaches of her independence has put a major obstacle in the way of my ongoing efforts to control time.  Every "all by myself" she asserts takes epochs longer than if I stepped in.  And the epochs pile up almost every minute:

wash my hands...

brush my teeth...

climb the stairs...

open the door...

get in my car seat...

"...ALL BY MYSELF!" (she yells it) is the new refrain in our home.  A friend of time might not mind.  But I do.

I try to be patient.  I try to encourage.  But I don't always.  I know I can do better - for her sake.  Then I start worrying that every "let me help you" and every gentle nudge out the door and every slip of the words "hurry" or "late" is stealing a gift from my child.  Am I stealing her love of time?  Her beautiful unawareness of it?  Am I training her to treat time as an enemy?  Like I do.

I'd rather be like her.  Days undivided.  Living.  Accepting.  Trusting.

Because really I am stealing from myself.  I am stealing this moment.  It is my own daughter, putting her left shoe on her right foot, wanting to be older and wanting her daddy to watch.  Not nudge.  Not rush.  

"Live with me now, daddy," she says.  "It's a gift."