One morning, as most schoolday mornings, I was running around frantically pushing my sons to move a little faster. I managed to tackle two tantrums in the car and drop the younger one to his daycare. Next, I had to drop the 5-year-old to his Kindergarten. I rushed to the car balancing the to-do lists in my mind while my son lingered on the sidewalk. I opened his car door and goaded him on. He skipped and hopped, trudged and trailed. Frustrated I pulled him along and told him maybe he should do a little less daydreaming while going to school.

These days a reflex action to anything I say is asking a question. So, of course, he proceeded to ask “What is daydreaming?”. I buckled him in quickly as I said, “Daydreaming is wasting time while you are supposed to do something else.” But he didn’t seem to hear me. He had a faraway look. He was perhaps summoning his latest best memory or dream, I cannot be sure. At length, he asked, “Is it like seeing fireworks in the day?”

I decided to show him what I meant. Nothing better than an impromptu demonstration. “Look, this is what you do when you daydream”, I said. I walked to the back of the car in slow punctuated motion making sure he could see me. I swayed and dragged my feet. I looked up at the sky and watched a plane make its way through the clouds disappearing in a halo of light. I stared at the fissures and crevices in the parking lot where defiant wild vegetation was popping up. I circled around the car and peered in to see my amused son. I played peek a boo with him for a good minute. Finally, I entered the car and sat down. I could hear my son giggling away. I looked back triumphantly to make my point. “See how long I took to walk to my door?”, I asked.

Then I paused and started laughing with him. I confessed, “You know, I was going to say this is why we shouldn’t daydream. It makes us late to school. But when I was showing you I quite liked daydreaming myself. What should we do now?” Between fits of laughter my son suggested, “How about we do our daydreaming on weekends”. I readily agreed and drove away.