Time Lost

2009-03-23 at 9:14 a.m.


The Girl Child has a date Thursday to go to the Military Ball with a friend. There just friends, (actually I think he may swing the other way - unless of course that's for the benefit of the parents to throw them off - I also over analyse everything...) but she's real excited about it. What girl doesn't get excited about dressing up in a really expensive gown and having their hair done up?

Anyway.....the problem with this is that she just told me about it Saturday night abut 6:00 P.M. Um, hello! I work every night till 9:30. You're in school all morning. The closest place to get a formal gown is an hour away from Goddess Forsaken Town.

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE my daughter. Considering her low level IQ, her specific learning disabilities and the fact that there's next to no help for special children that fall into that category of too high an IQ to be labled handicaped but to low an IQ to be a fully funtioning adult that doesn't require daily supervision, she's done exceptinaly well and I'm very proud of her. But the fact is, even after twenty years she still surprises me with her almost total lack of comprehension when it comes to abstract things such as the passage of time.
Most people have an internal clock that helps them, to varing degrees, make it through the twenty four hour period of life we call a day. Now, alot of people perpetually hit their snooze button to the point that we call them procrastinators. The Girl Child is not one of those. With her, Goddess forgot to plug the clock in. Five minutes and five hours are the same to her. She can look at a clock and tell you what time it is. That's a non-abstract piece of information that's sitting on the wall in black and white (or LED red or blue) that she can comprehend. It's the actual passing of time that she has a problem with.
Like jumping in the shower for a quick wash and taking an hour and a half. She's gone through all the hot water on numerous occassions and we have an 80 gallon water tank. We've tried the egg timer, but she usually has shampoo in her hair when it goes off. Thereby requiring her to stop the timer and finish her hair. Which takes twenty minutes.
We have a routine. She gets in, and five minutes later I knock on the door and tell her it's time to get out. She say's almost done. Five minutes later I knock again and tell her it's time, her brother has to get in. (He's been begging me to have another bathroom installed for years now.) "Almost done, Mom!" Another five minutes. Knocking much louder and insistant. "Girl Child, you're using all the hot water and your brother has to get in!" Another five minutes. Find the skeleton key, unlock the bathroom door and go turn the water off. Then , of course, the twenty to thirty minute allotment to dry off. Not dry off and get dressed. Just dry off. She runs from the bathroom to her bedroom in her robe and gets dressed in there. Which is another twenty minute afair. For jeans and a T-shirt.

Needless to say, Grandma is taking her to the closest town over to hunt for a dress tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes, I feel like I get to miss out on the fun stuff. I hope she doesn't remember me as the one who's always telling her to hurry up and not the one that got to slow down and have fun with her.

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