Time Of Your Life

All of my life I have been a clock-watcher.  An 'always on-time' kind of person.  When I truly want to relax, like for example when I go on vacation, I remove my watch and try to not think about what time it is every minute of the day.  It's a challenge.

Today during "Take Ten", the morning snack time for my little ones, one of my CEOs (Classroom Executive Officers) went over to my computer to set the countdown clock for their precious ten minutes of snack and talking with friends time.  They get to choose

from a variety of fun little timers, like a snail race, hour glass, swimmers and more.  

Suddenly four or five students started pointed, laughing and screeching at the Promethean board where the countdown clock was displayed.  It read 90:30:00.  The boy had mistakenly input the nine minutes, thirty seconds to read ninety hours, thirty minutes.  A real cause for alarm in the classroom.  They were in a tizzy.

"Simmer down!" I exclaimed as I headed over to my computer.  "I don't think we'll be having a ninety hour snack time today.  We have way too much to do!"  

A couple students giggled as the red-faced boy was clearing and resetting the timer.

"Boy!" laughed one.  "I would be an old man by the time the clock ran out!" he said to his table of friends.  They all nodded in agreement. 

Really?  Ninety hours?  I smiled to myself, thinking of the many weeks where I worked ninety hours.  Well, alright, maybe not ninety, but it felt like that.  How adorable that this little one thought ninety hours would make him an old man. Eight years + ninety hours = old.  If that were the case I'd be in the Guiness Book of World Records.  I guess in all honestly, four or five days is actually quite a long length of time to a kid. 

Time can be a funny thing.  We run out of it.  We give it.  We get punished with time-outs as a kid and we never have enough of it. We get time off from work and put in time on the job.  We enjoy time and we waste time.   We mark time and we take our time.  We watch time fly and time is of the essence.   
  
Time is different in a kid's life.   A day can seem like an eternity.  Waiting for gym time after lunch can be like a life sentence when you're eight.  On the contrary, in an adult's life, time seems to speed up every year as we get older.  

We all could benefit from being reminded to take time to smell the roses.   Live in the present.  I'm lucky that I get to spend the majority of my time with young, enthusiastic, happy, curious, excited little ones. 

Let's enjoy every minute of the time we have. 

(Listen to one of my favorite songs: Green Day: Time Of Your Life)