Routine.

Fiona mentioned to me yesterday that there’s a new girl in her class.

“Is she nice?” seemed like a good question to ask my 3.5 year old daughter.
A simpler form of “Does she play well with others?”, if you will.

Because that would probably be what registers and is important at that age, right?
You want the other kids to be nice to you- kind, you want the other kids to play well with you.
At this point in my daughter’s life, she’s probably not looking much past these basics.

It would be a simple verbal transaction.

I ask “Is she nice?”
Fiona answers “Yes.” Or “She took my pink crayon” in lieu of “No”.


Or so I thought.

“She doesn’t have the routine down yet.” was her vaguely critical reply.
“But she’s nice.”

Alarming visions flashed through my head as I waited for the light to turn green on our way home from her school.
Brief flashes of The Shawshank Redemption… various boarding school movies… “What we have here is a failure to communicate”……. Flew through my brain, all in an instant.

“Doesn’t have the routine down yet?” from my 3 year old?
WTF???

“Ummm… Do YOU have the routine down?”

“Yes!” was her prompt and matter-of-fact reply.

“What IS the routine?”

(Please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop atmosphere, please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop…)

“Doing things you don’t want to do, because the teachers tell you to.”

My relief that her pre-school is apparently NOT treating their students as cheap labor, quickly morphed into something less upbeat.

She’s already figuring out what a large chunk of her life is going to be all about. 14+ more years of school, and then college, hopefully grad school if she wants it.

And jobs. There’s little chance that she’ll go through life without having to work jobs to make ends meet.

Thanks for making me think about this sweetheart, after just leaving a particularly difficult day at the office behind. No, really. Keep up the good work...

That IS, and will continue to be the routine, for most of your life, darlin’.

That’s why we all embrace what’s OUTSIDE of the routine, with such vigor.

Fishing weekends, family getaways, live music, dinner with friends, the odd night out….
playtime.

Never, EVER take playtime for granted, darlin'.
Because the rest… Is routine.