It seems like the measure of our new leaders or governments these days is in terms of ‘the first 100 days’, but this clean decimal multiple – like New Year’s Eve or your own Quit Day, if you’ve ever had the misfortune to plan one, as I have – strikes me as as random a number or day on which to pronounce anything; after all, who can say what might happen on day 99 or 101 to counter the achievements or failures, or expectations, of day 100?
That thought crossed my mind tonight as I sat on the edge of Four Year Old’s bed while stroking his face and arm in an effort to send him off to Nod.
I realised that if there was one thing I knew absolutely about my son, as a human being, it’s that when he’s had a 45-minute nap in the car during a Sunday drive, plus had to go to bed an hour ‘early’ due to the introduction of daylight saving, bedtime will be a bastard. And so it was.
But it was strangely comforting among the sheer resigned frustration of it all, to realise I knew him so well. And I wondered how long he had been around for me to know that. So to pass the time while he resisted sleep, I started multiplying in my head.
I was kinda hoping it might have been a portentous 1000 days, or even 1500, but in the end I’m content with 1539. It makes me look forward with maternal anticipation to what immovable truth I will know about my 8 and a half year old at 3078.
Probably that he still hates mushrooms.
