Why Having a Kid is Like Time Travel

By Randall

My earliest memory is driving a car through a pitch-black forest as a 1 year old.

You might doubt that on many levels, foremostly that my tiny baby arms would be strong enough to operate a steering wheel but also you would question my ability to recall such an early memory. But I know for certainty that it was true.  And here’s how.  

When I was just weeks old, my parents loaded everything they had into a car and drove from Edmonton, Alberta to Big Sandy, TX where my father finished his undergraduate degree. We moved back to Canada before my 2nd birthday. But sometime before that happened, and after I was able to stand, (and because I had what is commonly referred to as a “Rad Dad”) my father let me stand on his lap and drive the car through the Piney Woods behind campus.

When I described the memory decades later at the dinner table my father was floored. Not just because of how old the memory was, but how clearly I could recall it. And just like that he was back in Texas, a young father working hard to build a better life for his new family. 

Time Travel.

Bea started pre-school this year, and that means labeling winter clothing. As I carefully penned her name onto the jacket's label I was shocked to see my mother's handwriting. I wrote it but I could see my mother's penmanship in it. And just like that I was whisked back in time to my first Sears parka, the one that crunched when you moved, like it wasn't lined with Poly-fill but rather stale Lucky Charms.  

Time Travel. 

These thoughts went through my head as Danielle and I struggled to get Bea into her snow pants. I wondered if penmanship is genetic. I wondered if it was too early to teach Bea to drive us to the cottage. I wondered if we've already invented time travel but can't solve the whole transportation through space thing.

And that's when it really happened. When we both time traveled simultaneously.

We pulled her pants up and she tore off like a shot.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

"Remember that!" Danielle exclaimed.

If you could only read my mind my love.