Time waits for no man

My son is enjoying learning to tell time. He is completely fascinated by it.

"We are going up to bed in 5 minutes guys!" "No! 6 minutes!" "OK, 6 minutes."

"The pasta will be ready in a few minutes." "When the big hand is on the 7?" Yea, more or less when the big hand is on the 7." Then God forbid the pasta is not ready when the big hand gets to the 7.

There is an electronic clock in my car. Everyday, after Colin finishes his breakfast and brushes his teeth, he trots off downstairs, puts on his coat and shoes, and hops into the car. Meanwhile, Mommy is running around the house frazzled, as she tries to hurry Lucia along (Lucia likes to linger over her breakfast and she is not nearly as independent when it comes to getting herself off to the car) and also trying to gather up the necessities for school (backpack with AM. snack for Colin, clean bib for Lucia on Monday mornings, etc.) Colin sits in the car in the garage yelling "Hurry up Mom! We're going to be late" to his harried mother. He also gives me very frequent updates on the time. Even after I've finished running around the house, and have finally gotten myself into the car, he continues to harass me with, "Mom, it's 1 minute after 8 o'clock.......Mom, it's 2 minutes after 8 o'clock". This continues all the way to school, unless I manage to distract him with some good songs on the radio or a discussion of what fun things we are going to do after school.

The other day I tried to introduce the concept of understanding the difference between time. As we were finishing up our dinner, I asked Colin to look at the clock and tell me the time. He proudly said "8 o'clock mommy". So then I said, "If it is 8 o'clock and Daddy said he would be home at 7:30, how late is Daddy?"

This time Lucia chimed in, to show that her understanding of things reaches way beyond mere minutes and hours. "Very late", she said.