Einstein Said He Could Never Understand it All

I've awakened on several mornings recently with a song in my head -- the only pop song I'm aware of that references Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity -- an unjustly-neglected James Taylor classic called, "Secret O'Life":

Now the thing about time is that time isn't really real
It's just your point of view
How does it feel for you?
Einstein said he could never understand it all...

Note that the Theory of Relativity does not refer to the idea that time goes slower when your relatives visit. I never said that and I will continue to deny that I did.

Regardless of what you think of Professor Einstein's theory, and Professor Taylor's corollary, there are a lot of examples of time being relative. This is impressed upon me quite forcefully when talking to other parents, especially the ones with adult children.

For some reason all of them are obligated to advise me: "Enjoy this time -- they grow up so fast." You will perhaps pardon me if that seems a little difficult to believe. Since our son was born in 1999, and our daughter will be graduating from high school in 2020, we are still in the warmup stage, kidwise.

I'm going to entirely put aside the question of "enjoying" this time... probably best to take the Fifth Amendment on that one.

It's definitely true that it's difficult to maintain an accurate sense of time when you're in the midst of the whirlwind. For a long, long time we were eternally vigilant over our children. Never can tell when the little one might take a notion to expand the concept of what's considered "edible"... or perhaps her brother might decide to use her to practice for his future calling as an NFL punter.

Suddenly -- and I have absolutely no idea when or how this happened -- we've reached a state of affairs where we look at each other and ask, "Where are the kids? What are they doing?" I'm not talking about tossing my daughter the keys and telling her to drive herself to preschool... but they have showed they can handle a certain amount of autonomy.

We still have the odd occurrence of Wrestlemania down in the playroom, but we're just as likely to hear bumping & giggling and when you call down, "What's going on?" they reply in completely innocent-sounding unison, "Nothing!"

I can take advantage of the extra free time by doing lots more chores. That is, I can... but I don't. It actually gives me a chance to check a few extra websites, or finish a sudoku, or simply grab a snack without having to explain to the kids why I get one and they don't.

It's all part of the master plan: we encourage the kids to be more independent, to amuse themselves, to learn to get along better and resolve their own disputes, fostering more closeness between siblings.

Or maybe I just don't want to have to share the chips.