Compulsions

We've got a serious clock watcher around here lately. I first clued in to it when I was pulling into the garage and Isabelle had us all sit and watch the clock in the car because it was about to change to 6:00! Have you ever sat and watched for a clock to change times? It only takes one minute, but it seems like forever!

From there she has progressed to being completely frustrated by the differences in time throughout our house. She comes downstairs and notices the time on the kitchen clock and with a great deal of frustration says, "The clock upstairs said that it was 7:27, and the clock down here says it's only 7:23!" She sits quietly but can't relax until the downstairs clock changes to what the upstairs clock used to say. Then I can't help myself from impishly informing her that now the upstairs clock says 7:31.

We frequently hear her exclaim things like, "Its 4,5,6! Or It's 5, 5, 5!!" You get the idea.

I thought she was close to coming out of her skin Tuesday night at Caden's band concert. There were two digital clocks at the front of the auditorium, and they were usually three minutes apart. When they weren't keeping time, that was all that she could notice, and had to frequently point out their discrepancy. Every five minutes they would skip to the same time, for some reason. Then she wanted me to stare at the clocks with her so that we could see the very moment that they went wrong once again. I'll admit - I couldn't do it - it was too a painful!!


I remember my dad always pointing out time to us kids - I especially remember it as we drove to early morning seminary in the mornings. I figured Isabelle inherited this 'compulsive time gene' from him. Then my father-in-law, who was also at the concert said, "That's just like Marilyn! She is always frustratedly saying, "There is not a clock in our house that is on the same time!!"
Hmmm...

Maybe a lot of people watch clocks. Not me. I use the clocks in my house to give me a ball-park idea of the time of the day - never do notice if one is keeping time with another. When I need to be somewhere at a specific time, I go by a specific clock just to be consistent. Who's abnormal, them or me?

I've decided that people who have a penchant for math notice things like time, and those less numerically- minded (like myself) could care less!:) It's probably a good thing that we have both kinds of people around us.