I love daylight savings in the fall. I’ve been waiting to fall back for weeks now. My grand master plan (insert evil laugh here) is to wear the kids out by day, keep them up late and have them sleep in according to the new clock. This plan then allows me to stay on the old time, easily waking an hour early to have a quiet hour to myself to meditate or practice yoga.
It’s 5:45am at the Gallagher house and I’m starting to rouse on my own, before the alarm clock. Yay! The plan is working. I roll over and smile inside – man I’m good. The next thing I hear is my seven-year old “whisper-yelling”. Now in my tiny little house, if one person is rustling, whispering, or breathing too loudly, we’re all awake. Eeek. As it turns out, Kieran was stealing a pillow from his big brother. Yep, while he’s asleep. Nope, it didn’t go over very well. It was a big commotion and I had to drag Kieran into the closet so I could have a dharma talk with him about loving-kindness without waking the house.
Sigh. The master plan was foiled again.
I take safety pins and pin Kieran to his mattress by his pajamas - oh wait, I’m going into fantasy mode again – I mean, I tucked Kieran into my bed and went downstairs to start my meditation. Once again it seemed like a beautiful day.
Thud, thud, thud. That’s the sound of Kieran coming down my stairs. Let me tell you a bit about son #2. My Kieran doesn’t do anything quietly. He doesn’t do anything slowly. Everything is a competition. He’s the number two child. That’s his job.
On to plan B… let’s put this kid into meditation. I do meditation with the kids occasionally, so Kieran knew what to do. I gave him my mala beads to help him focus and set the timer for seven minutes – one minute for every year old he is. I gave him a little mantra to repeat for each bead, “I can use my voice wisely”. He was really excited about it. I explained that getting around the set of mala beads one breath at a time usually takes about 15 minutes, so he might just get around the beads half way and that’s just fine. After working in the kitchen for about two minutes, I heard Kieran yell “YES! Mom I already got around the beads one time!” Every couple of minutes he would squeal with delight at how fast he was able to accomplish this goal of his. At the end of the seven minutes he came to me and was so proud that he flew through his meditation so quickly! Well, his loud voice woke the other kids so our day began much earlier than planned.
Foiled again.
It’s so obvious to see that my little man had no clue why he was sitting in meditation. To him it was a chore that he could accomplish by going faster and being efficient. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to his mantra. But I have to admit that minutes earlier in my own meditation I actually caught myself thinking, “Wow. I’m meditating so much better today than yesterday.”
Foiled again.
