Tick, Tick, Tick

Most of my days pass at breakneck speed. With two active kids, I don't slow down very often. I always have a list of 900 things to do, most of which will probably be passed from list to list to list until sometime in the 2020s.

Today, time seems to have stopped. My daughter is off at her first day of kindergarten, and I simply cannot focus enough to tackle anything on the to do list. Jake is napping, and these are the afternoon hours I've been longing for -- quiet time when I can get things done without interruption.

It feels a bit like when we were trying to get a child to sleep through the night -- pointedly ignoring the anguished cries, when each minute felt like an hour. "I can't take anymore; it's just not right to let her keep crying. It's been at least 45 minutes." A quick check of the clock would reveal that it had actually been 4 to 5 minutes.

I had no idea just how long her day at school would seem. I didn't appreciate how much earlier she would be leaving in the morning than she did for preschool. Jake and I were back from the bus stop at 8:15, both kind of looking at each other as if to say, "what now?"

We have filled the time -- a trip to Home Depot for some fall plants, a grocery store run for milk and other essentials, a lot of time playing outside. And now he naps peacefully, while I pace around the house waiting for my daughter to be returned to me. Tick, tick, tick.