Confucius say: You can't rush a four-year-old

It's been a while since I have posted. This has NOT been for a lack of things to say. I called this blog "George's Running Social Commentary" because that is what happens in my head virtually everyday. Long before there was such a thing (or even such a word) as blogs, I pined for some outlet that would serve as an expression for all the random, poignant, funny, judgemental, irritating, sarcastic, thoughtful, philosophical, angry and/or bemused dialogues that fill my head everyday like letters in a bowl of alphabet soup (and with about as much order).

I wonder, does everyone have that kind of constantly running dialogue between their ears? It's like living with Howard Cosell in your head, except in my case he never talks about sports, only people and things and ideas, colorfully, carelessly, and rather politically incorrectly. "And coming up from behind," he says of the car getting ready to pass me on I-forty on my way to church, "Yet one more middle-aged housewife on the phone. Her face says everything, folks. She's nowhere to be found. Gone. On cellphone cloud nine. On this glorious day for highway driving, watch as she weaves over the lane dividers as if trying to shake off Al Quaeda pursuers. And now she's digging in her purse and applying makeup, all at the same time. Truly, we are observing a multi-tasking juggernaut of legendary proportion." And so on.

So, all that to say, I have had quite a bit to say lately. I just ain't been saying it. That doesn't mean you are all off the hook*. It just means you are gonna get it all in rapid-fire over the next few days. The good news is that I'll have to encapsulate a lot of it. Put on your seat belt. Here goes:

Have you ever noticed that kids are un-rushable? We have in our household now one almost- four-year-old and one almost-one-year-old (yes, we are still at that stage where you measure the months between birthdays and factor them into the kids' ages). Working at home, I have had the unique opportunity to witness my wife regularly trying to get Zane, the older one, ready for some outing or other. Almost without fail it is a bit of a minor ordeal. It isn't a matter of reluctance to go on Zane's part: he loves to go out. It is simply a matter of Zane's unspoken but apparently iron-clad stance against being rushed. He has no concept of hurrying. No sense whatsoever of being late or early. For him, life is in the journey, and the journey begins LONG before ever walking out the door. The journey is in going to put on his shoes, for instance.

"Hurry, Zane" Mama says, "Go get your shoes on and we'll go to the park."

Zane starts off for his shoes, determinedly and directly, for about three steps. Then, of course, he has to stop to push in the dining room chairs. Surely one wouldn't think of leaving until that was done. This leads to a discovery of some breakfast Cheerios scattered on the floor. Those musn't be picked up, per se, but they SHOULD be pushed around and stomped on carefully, making tiny little rubble piles like ant bombsites all over the floor. "Zane!" Mama calls exasperatedly, "Get your shoes on! It's time to go!" And Zane, rather bewildered, finishes crunching the last of the Cheerios before heading, for a few more steps, in the direction of his shoes. He is bewildered because he is thinking "What do you think I'm doing, Mama? This is all part of putting on my shoes. Just like walking three or four times around the living room chair, climbing up on my bed and tugging at my socks until they are flapping off my toes like rather stinky flags, spreading some toys around the kitchen floor, pulling the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and leaving it in the middle of the hall with the cord unraveled in a pile, asking Papa to play racing on his computer, and poking baby sister in the face with a plastic car until she cries, and then poking her a few more times to see if she'll stop. Duh." It isn't that Zane cannot move quickly, exactly. It is that it simply does not occur to him to not do any of the things that it occurs to him it might be fun, or even just part of the ritual, to do.

This is evidently universal to kids. I saw a dad and son in the changing area of the YMCA a couple days ago. The dad was pretty irritated, trying to hurry his young son along so they could leave. The son was systematically getting into each locker, pulling the door to, then getting out again and moving on to the next locker. "Come on, let's go!" The dad plead/commanded. "I AM!" The son replied, looking perplexed and annoyed. He was getting in and out of each locker rather quickly, he apparently believed. Duh, dad. Maybe the son was annoyed, too. Maybe he was thinking "You know, dad, you could take the lockers on the other side and we could finish this in half the time. Sheesh."

And I thought: Is this an instance where we might benefit by being more like kids? We adults know how to rush. We know how to schedule our days to cram in as much work and errands and deadlines and duties as possible. We get annoyed at our kids because they don't understand this. They don't get that there are things to do, appointments to keep, a clock to race. All the kid gets is that something looks fun and by golly he's gonna do it. That's his job. That's his one and only priority.

And we think that's a bad thing, do we?

Sure, we adults have responsibilities. Play isn't our one-and-only job description, like it is for four year olds. But it isn't excluded from our job description, either, is it? Is it? It better not be, or we are wasted-out zombies.

So here's my plan. I am going to choose to be unrushable as well. If I need to be somewhere at 6, I am going to plan to start getting ready at 5. It only takes me about 20 minutes to get ready (I am a man, see?). So what am I gonna do with that extra time between 5:20 and 6? I ain't gonna work. I ain't gonna squeeze in a few emails. I ain't gonna make a quick phone call or clean out my closet or prep dinner or return the frikkin' movie I rented last week that is already overdue. What am I gonna do? I don't know. Who cares. Maybe I'll sit on the bed and tug at my socks until they flap off my toes like rather stinky flags. I'm gonna go swing on the swings. I'm gonna leave early enough to stop at the lemonade stand on the corner and discuss business with the eight-year-old running it. I'm gonna see something fun and I'm gonna do it, by golly, by garsh. I'm gonna make play a part of my day.

Duh.

* "all" here being a term which means myself, the Howard Cosell in my head, and perhaps a few random internet surfers looking for housewife blogs with sexy bits. No sexy bits here. No housewives either. But there is a mention of swinging on swings at some point. Make your own joke.