Skip to main content

In a minute


The first phrase that my daughter mastered was "in a minute".  She'd be talking away in unrecognizable chatter on her "cell phone" when she would be chirp, "in a minute".  This phrase has taken such prominence in my language since having kids that it has come to be used by both of my kids to my disadvantage almost on an hourly basis.

"Can you move these trucks out of the kitchen?"
"In a minute."
"Time for a bath."
"In a minute."
"Get your boots on."
"In a minute."

I misused the phrase for so long, it is hardly surprising that it would be misused by them.  Looking back, I'd say it all started in the early early days of first-time parenthood when I was shocked by the transition into the present that breastfeeding demanded.  RIGHT NOW. NOT penciled in for Saturday, NOT in about an hour, NOT whenever, but, RIGHT NOW.  Preferably sooner.  Because, well, because what else is there except for now? It took me so long to be at peace and willingly succumb to these demands without feeling a kind of doom and I think my use (and abuse) of "in a minute" grew to reflect how, as they grew more independent, i.e. were able to sit in one place with a toy for 2 minutes while I rushed to the bathroom or finished a cup of coffee before it got cold, I tried to restore my version of time.  I could resist, just for a minute, these demands on me right this second. To buy me time in situations with people who have no concept of it.



The trouble is, I feel like I have corrupted my children.  I've taught them that time can be stretched and manipulated. Things can be postponed, distanced and re-arranged in a thousand different ways.  They've started to take my lead and take it to a whole new level.  Why couldn't I have been corrupted by their version of timekeeping instead?  How would everything be different if I had been?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I entered August without you.

 I won't visit you this month.  You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you.   I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.
1 comment
Read more

Fists full of lettuce

 It is a pot of a variety of lettuce plants. It was planted by my mom.  She has been living with Stage 4 bile duct cancer for at least 1.5 years (that we know of, probably a lot longer).  Standing and gardening are becoming harder as time goes on. She learned about gardening from her dad as a kid and kept on gardening every year of her adult life.  Sometimes the gardens were tiny or rudimentary, but with the help of my dad , they have become major and, at times elaborate, growing projects over the years.  Now it is a collection of raised beds and regular beds that hold a host of plants, vegetable and flowers. Something that was clear that first spring with Stage 4 cancer is that gardening would continue in a big way, cancer or no cancer.  It was important to order the seeds and start them inside and get them planted outside, no matter what. Spending time together in the summer with cancer now consistently involves gardening and following instructions. Planting, and prepping and weeding
Post a Comment
Read more

Shake your Bummy

In recent weeks, two things have come to my attention, this article by Mary Beth Williams,  T he real key to good health  and the viral hit created by Dr. Mike Evans,  23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?  Both coincided with when I was turning my attention to new years resolutions and reflecting on the year that was. Thanks to both,  a reckoning came to be.  Mary Beth Williams' candid advice was to get your heart stronger because you never know when you are going to need it.  She herself has been receiving treatment for lung cancer. Dr Mike Evans' way of putting the exact same thing? "Try to limit your sitting time to 23 1/2 hours a day".   In my day job, I sit a lot. I occasionally rise to retrieve something from the photocopier or to make a coffee, but an awful lot of the time, I'm on my bum.  This is in steep contrast to my night job. At the end of the work day, occasionally in the middle, I have to burst out of the doo
5 comments
Read more