The Long Way Home

Time. I've always been one to think of various things in relation to time whether it be in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years. I'm not sure why my mind works this way, but I often think of blocks of time as being repetitive. For example: 'I have been on the treadmill for twenty minutes. I plan to run (who am I kidding?) walk for an hour, so I have to repeat what I've already done two more times.'  I can remember as early as first grade caring very much about how much time it took me to complete a task, particularly compared to others. My fourth grade teacher wrote a poem about our class at the end of the school year, and the line about me read, 'Melissa always finishes first.'  As many folks do, I often look back at previous years and recollect what I was doing at a certain time: 'On this day last year, I was nine months pregnant and anxiously awaiting the birth of my Murphy Girl!'
It's funny how portions of time can seem longer or shorter depending on the activities that are consuming the time. An hour, for example, can fly by during a great movie or a fabulous evening with friends. That exact same amount of time can creep along when lying on a hospital bed waiting to be wheeled into the operating room for a c-section. An hour sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a Friday afternoon after a long work week felt like an eternity and left me feeling frustrated and impatient. Nowadays, I've found myself taking the long way just to get us home a few minutes closer to bedtime.
Take last Wednesday, for example. Carter finished ballet at 5:15 PM, and since her class is just a couple blocks from Hubby's office, I decided to pop by with the girls for a late afternoon visit. After what felt like four hours, I looked at the clock to see that it was 5:32. I killed a few more minutes and then loaded the girls up in the car. I knew that I was flying solo for dinner/bedtime, so I was in no hurry to get home. As we sat in traffic at a dead stand-still, Carter said, 'Mommy, are you going to take a short-cut?' I slightly smiled and silently laughed to myself.  I knew that I could easily turn off the main road, take a few side streets, and likely get us home in half the time, but a short cut was the LAST thing Mommy would be taking. We made it home at around 6:20 (for a point of reference, Murphy goes to bed at 7:00, sharp), and when I looked at the clock what felt like hours later, it read 6:24.
I blink my baby girl is turing one and my big girl is such a person. I wonder where the days went and beg the hands of time to stand still, yet it can feel like I've lived an entire week by 9:23 AM on a Monday.  I read a quote on my friend Corinda's blog that so accurately explains this phenomenon. Slightly paraphrased, it read, 'For Mothers of young children the years do indeed fly, but you can gag on a day!' As darkness is coming earlier and winter is drawing near which is sure to bring lots of snow days, I may need to remember to savour hot cocoa, cozy blankets, and snuggles... and hide all the clocks!