I was dashing around the house this morning doing the usual readying-for-work chores, like making lunches, feeding Huddie, packing knapsacks, and planning ahead for dinner. And all the while I was catching snippets of Sam's playtime up in his room. In wildly dramatic tones, he was voicing a superhero-type threat: "You have two minutes to tell us where you hid the device!" or "You will tell us who your spy is in two minutes!" Sometimes his voice changed, and in gleeful disrespect for authority, he would declare, "All of this will be destroyed in two minutes!" or "You don't know what I can do in two minutes!"
Always with the two minutes.
I wondered if maybe he got that kind of countdown from me—from years of giving him the head's up, "Sammy, we're leaving in two minutes," "Two more minutes and the shower goes off," "Lights out in two minutes." But then I spotted the little prize bag from the dentist office, the one he got yesterday morning after his check-up. Sure enough, the mini hourglass timer was missing. Those sands measure the perfect brushing time. Two minutes.
"Sam? Are you playing up there with the toothbrush timer?" I called. He hesitated a second or so before admitting, "Yup! I'll remember to bring it back to the bathroom when I'm done." I chuckled, imagining how unlikely it was that those helpful blue sands counted down the seconds to city annihilation or superhero rescue in any other children's homes. Then I noticed we were running late and called, "Let's go, Bunny! Time for shoes." No surprise, I suppose, that his answer was "Okay! I'll be down in two minutes!"
