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7:25 last Friday morning – My granddaughter Adeline and I sat to review for her Social Studies test. My granddaughter Emma Kate quietly sat at the opposite end of the table.

7:28 – My daughter Monique called. “Have you seen Caroline’s school shoes?”

“I know where they are,” Emma Kate said, and she ran to get them.

7:29 – Adeline and I skimmed the history of the Puritans and the Pilgrims.

7:30 – Monique arrived to retrieve Caroline’s shoes.

7:32 – Adeline packed her lunch kit, and I found Emma Kate’s bookbag.

7:34 – I buckled Emma Kate into her car seat, and noticed she was wearing press-on fingernails. That’s what had kept her so quiet earlier.

“You can’t wear those to PreK,” I said. “You have to take them off and put them in the cup holder.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I do a lot of things I don’t want to do.”

“I’m telling my family. I’m mad and I’m sad.”

Stop the clock! I listened as a barely 4-year-old identified, expressed and processed her emotions. (Buying a house so close to school had been a good decision.)

“I understand, but you still have to obey.”

7:38 – After I blurted out one last Pilgrim fact, Adeline hopped out the car. I congratulated myself for getting her to school on time. One down, one to go.

7:40 – Without a second to spare, I helped Emma Kate out of her car seat, thanked her for putting the nails in the cup holder, and despite her tearfully asking to with me, handed her to her teacher. “Can Emma Kate tell you all about her pretty press on nails?”

7:45 – Went to the gym where I did exercises I didn’t want to do.

 

Ronny Michel can be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.