Forrest does time

He doesn't swim in linear time. He lives in the The Power of Now He is good at repeating things over and over again until he gets it right...or not. Like telling time. For about 20 years now teachers have been pulling out the newest curriculum for teaching "delayed" kids how to read a clock. There are big debates about which clock to use, digital or the round things. The thing is, he can say "oh it's 11 33!" from a digital clock, and we get really excited that he knows what time it is...but this doesn't mean anything to him. He is just trying to sound like us which impresses us. For linear time folks, 11:33 might be translated to " oh shit I am late!" or "time to think about lunch", or many other things. Forrest will tell you it's almost lunch time from hunger and olfactory cues.

Forrest doesn't think in minutes and hours. For example, mornings are not mornings unless the "sunshine is out." This is a problem every winter. My problem. It is worse now that we live in Portland and it is really still dark at 7:00 a.m in January. If I say we have to leave in 5 minutes, which is my way of saying hurry up, he isn't sure that means get your shoes on or I am going to change my outfit now into a county singer theme and come downstairs later.

Forrest does have strong opinions about time and it boils down to this: he refuses to rush, hurry up, get a move on or hustle. When he started kindergarten, it would trigger a crying melt-down tantrum when I used to say "Hurry up!" in the morning....actually I would "sign" it back then. When he was five we signed everything since his tongue wasn't connected to his language brain yet. What mother signs/says "Hurry up!" to a five year old getting ready for preschool so she can get to work on time? Uh, well, maybe every mother? I don't know. All I know is that Forrest made us stop hurrying every morning. It was too stressful.

One time his physical therapist told us he had to begin putting on his own shoes (no laces) in the 1st grade. Okay fine, we'll set the alarm for an hour earlier and see what happens. The truth was, we didn't have time to let Forrest dress himself, feed himself let alone spend 20 minutes figuring out how to squeeze his cute little toes into cute little shoes. We had jobs. Jobs with clocks.