Every morning I encounter the same thing with my daughter. She dawdles. I don’t know what she’s doing, but she’s certainly taking up an awful lot of time doing it. I know it doesn’t take a half hour to put clothes on. At least, not for an 8 year old. And it doesn’t take someone five minutes to brush their hair, when she remembers to do it.

Getting her out of the house every morning has become quite the feat of my day. Once the kids are tucked away and I’m on the highway, the rest of the day is all mine. I’m golden.

On my way to work this morning I got stuck behind someone who was going slow and ended up having to stop for a school bus. A mother still in her pajamas was walking with her son to the bus. The son did not have his coat on, was not wearing his backpack, which the mom was holding, but he had his juice box. It took some time for the boy to eventually get on the bus, leaving all the cars to wait, patiently. I was almost getting mad about the situation, wondering why the mom didn’t have her child ready and waiting at the side of the road for the bus, till she made this strange face at the bus driver. A face all moms know and can sympathize with. I’ve probably made this face several times in the last week alone.

It was the face of exasperation for a child who dawdles. The face that a mother will make when she’s had it and has no other words for the actions of her kid but to stick her tongue out and roll her eyes, throwing her arms up. As if to say “Who the heck knows what’s going on with my child, I don’t, but at least he’s on the bus.” At least she made it through the morning. And now she can rest, or at least go on with her day.
I couldn’t be mad at her, because I’ve been in that situation. More times than I can count. And I had to laugh, cause that face says more to me than any other.

Children do not have the sense of time that adults have. They know they have to go to school, but they think that they have huge tracts of time to just sit and watch television or stare off into space or play with toys, when they should really be dressing themselves, brushing their teeth, eating breakfast, making their lunch and getting their butts out the door. My daughter doesn’t know the meaning of “rushing around” and has only one speed, slow, in everything she does.

I could be upset about all this, but on the other hand I should step back and look at the bigger picture. I have someone in my midst who has not been sullied by the effects of time constraints. She does pretty much whatever she wants, when she wants. Time be damned. Not a lot of adults have this luxury. It’s all about going somewhere, doing something, then going somewhere else. We don’t get a lot of time for ourselves, to do with as we please.

There is something to be learned from children who dawdle. And that is how can we, as adults, learn to dawdle more. Is there a way for us to incorporate our own dawdle time into each day? Or have we progressed past dawdling, never to dawdle again?

I hope not. Cause I like to dawdle, when I can. I also like using the word dawdle in sentences, cause it both looks and sounds funny. It’s a very unique word in and of itself.

I challenge each of my readers to go out and find some time to dawdle today. Spend long amounts of time doing anything you want to do, things that you’ve put off because you never had time to do them. Just because you can. You deserve it.

Eventually you’ll have to return to the real world, where time rules with a heavy fist. Time is our keeper and we must abide. Most of the time. 😉