The Concept of Time

As adults we don’t think much about the concept of time. For us, it just flies. I remember as a child, how the time would drag along. Having two weeks off over the holidays was a TON of time. The summers were never ending and it took forever for Christmas to arrive. Now there isn’t time for anything.

I realized this morning that I have no idea when kids learn the concept of time. That not everything is instantaneous, and that there is a difference between a day and a week. I learned this after hearing much sobbing when we pulled into the daycare parking lot.

Literally, the turn into the lot and there was sobbing like Leif suddenly had the most hurt feelings in the entire world. I hurried to park the car and get back to him to see what triggered this. He didn’t want to get out of the car and go into daycare. Immediately thoughts of “what happened yesterday and who did this to him” entered my mind. After a few minutes I get him calmed down enough to tell me.

“I (sob sob sob) go airplane (sob sob sob) see grandma and bompa (sob sob sob).”

My heart broke for him. AB and I have been talking the past few days about how we are going to go on the airplane to see grandma and grandpa for Christmas next week. Never did I think about the fact that “next week” means nothing to Leif. Somehow he became convinced that today was the day we were going to go get on the airplane to go see grandma and grandpa.

His two teachers and his former teacher from last year all talked to him about the fun things they were going to do today, music class, movie day, etc. Luckily he was the first one to arrive and they could take this time with him. After much reassuring he gave me a kiss and hug goodbye and went off to help make snack.

I got in the car and called AB. New tactic with regards to vacation… we don’t say a word about airplanes until next Saturday morning.