"It Happened Last Night"
It Happened Last Night Published 10.20.10 CLT
By Allan Olson
It’s funny how kids have no concept of time, yet keep asking about the time and how long is it to do this or that. With my younger kids, it’s often about the fact that it happened last night.
“I went to grandma and grandpa’s last night,” my daughter Abigail has informed more than once. Or another line is, “I did it last night,” or “Iast night it did.” I’ve often wondered how I can get inside her little brain and find out what happened last night in her sleep.
“Uncle Brian took me to Walmart last night,” she’s said. No, he didn’t, I reply. “Uh- huh, last night he did,” she said. Sometimes it’s futile to argue with a four-year-old, so I just shake my head and walk away.
My wife asked our youngest daughter recently to “Come here.” She replied, “Just a minute.” Well, I dare say, we’ve both told her that a time or two, but does she really know what a minute is? And do we tell her to move her minute faster, or recognize the fact that she did hear her mother and didn’t ignore her, which even at the nearly three-year-old stage she’s quite capable of doing.
Or how about my youngest son Marcus, who’s recently taken a liking to asking “How many miles is it?” to wherever our destination is; “How many minutes is it?” he asked me recently as we headed to the laundromat, which is right across the highway from our residence. Last year he started having a consistent bed time, and he didn’t like that. “It’s not 8:30,” he would say when we would send him to bed. “Your bed time isn’t 8:30, it’s 7:30, and you need to go to bed.” Then the waterworks – “I want to go to bed at 8:30!” he says between sobs. Or the famous line that most parents hear: “Can I stay up just a little bit longer?”
Lately, as the days have been getting shorter, they notice that it’s still dark out when they get up at 6:30 a.m. “It’s still dark out,” any one of the three might say. “Is it still bed time?” “I wish,” or something close to that is what I’m thinking. “No, I tell them, it will be light soon.” During the summer, when we told them it was bed time, their favorite line was, “But it’s still light out!”
My oldest child, Nikolai, has a bedtime of 8:30 p.m, and last year I got tired of sending him to bed at 8:30 and having it be 9 before he ever actually made it into his bed. This year, 8:30 is now the time he must have himself in bed, or the next night he goes to bed earlier. How early? Well, he pushed his limit once and found himself in bed the next night by 7:30. I don’t think it hurt him any, considering he was asleep before 8. So far, that’s the only time we’ve sent him to bed that early this school year, but the year is still young, and so is he, and it’s likely he will be heading to bed early again.
Will they ever learn what time is about, and do we really want them to? Or should we simply “leave them in the dark?”
Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great week. We appreciate your comments and feedback so drop us a line at cltimes1@arvig.net.
By Allan Olson
It’s funny how kids have no concept of time, yet keep asking about the time and how long is it to do this or that. With my younger kids, it’s often about the fact that it happened last night.
“I went to grandma and grandpa’s last night,” my daughter Abigail has informed more than once. Or another line is, “I did it last night,” or “Iast night it did.” I’ve often wondered how I can get inside her little brain and find out what happened last night in her sleep.
“Uncle Brian took me to Walmart last night,” she’s said. No, he didn’t, I reply. “Uh- huh, last night he did,” she said. Sometimes it’s futile to argue with a four-year-old, so I just shake my head and walk away.
My wife asked our youngest daughter recently to “Come here.” She replied, “Just a minute.” Well, I dare say, we’ve both told her that a time or two, but does she really know what a minute is? And do we tell her to move her minute faster, or recognize the fact that she did hear her mother and didn’t ignore her, which even at the nearly three-year-old stage she’s quite capable of doing.
Or how about my youngest son Marcus, who’s recently taken a liking to asking “How many miles is it?” to wherever our destination is; “How many minutes is it?” he asked me recently as we headed to the laundromat, which is right across the highway from our residence. Last year he started having a consistent bed time, and he didn’t like that. “It’s not 8:30,” he would say when we would send him to bed. “Your bed time isn’t 8:30, it’s 7:30, and you need to go to bed.” Then the waterworks – “I want to go to bed at 8:30!” he says between sobs. Or the famous line that most parents hear: “Can I stay up just a little bit longer?”
Lately, as the days have been getting shorter, they notice that it’s still dark out when they get up at 6:30 a.m. “It’s still dark out,” any one of the three might say. “Is it still bed time?” “I wish,” or something close to that is what I’m thinking. “No, I tell them, it will be light soon.” During the summer, when we told them it was bed time, their favorite line was, “But it’s still light out!”
My oldest child, Nikolai, has a bedtime of 8:30 p.m, and last year I got tired of sending him to bed at 8:30 and having it be 9 before he ever actually made it into his bed. This year, 8:30 is now the time he must have himself in bed, or the next night he goes to bed earlier. How early? Well, he pushed his limit once and found himself in bed the next night by 7:30. I don’t think it hurt him any, considering he was asleep before 8. So far, that’s the only time we’ve sent him to bed that early this school year, but the year is still young, and so is he, and it’s likely he will be heading to bed early again.
Will they ever learn what time is about, and do we really want them to? Or should we simply “leave them in the dark?”
Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great week. We appreciate your comments and feedback so drop us a line at cltimes1@arvig.net.
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