On the Run
Posted: April 14th, 2009 | Filed under: Sketches in Time and Space
(These are not gifts. They are obstacles.)
I recently spent five days as the sole caregiver to two 1.5-year olds (my sons). In my quest to occupy them for any time at all while I tended to the rest of life, a new sort of math emerged. Each day I’d dump a bunch of random junk in these gift bags - then, throughout the day I’d throw one down when I needed to buy some time. I felt like the hero in a foot-chase, pulling down furniture behind me as I ran, adding a few seconds here and there between me and my pursuers.
Each bag would buy me a few minutes. Here are some samples, and estimates:
5 minutes, 38 seconds
3 minutes, 53 seconds
6 minutes, 15 seconds
8 minutes, 3 seconds
Watching them for a little while, I began to learn the mysterious math of their baby attention spans, uncovering some of why some toys receive no attention, and other non-toys earn plenty of attention.
This item on its own wouldn’t go far:
3 seconds
But with one other item added, time multiplied!
1 minute, 43 seconds (at least!)
It’s like alchemy. A+B = more than the sum of A and B!
8 seconds
58 seconds
2 minutes, 4 seconds
Of course, all of this leads to the other end of this math problem - the time it takes to clean it all up again. I think it probably all cancels out in the end, but still, buying a few moments at the right time is priceless. It works for Harrison Ford in those chase scenes, so I guess it’ll work for me.