Never be late again! The formula for figuring out how long will it take you to leave the house (with children).

When you are a new parent, you are told about the difficulty and importance of installing a car seat properly into the car.

What you are not told,

is that getting your kids out the door and strapped into that mothereffer is much more difficult.

And you have no idea how much time it actually takes.

It’s not just the strapping in part.

It’s the gathering of all the crap.

The diapers.

The wipes.

The extra set of clothes.

The sippy cups.

The snacks.

The shit to keep them occupied in the car.

It’s the locating a matching pair of shoes so you can leave.

It’s the kid who takes a shit in her diaper right as you are walking out the door.

It’s the 2-year-old who wants to climb into the car himself.

And buckle his own seatbelt.

It’s the kid who tells you she has to pee immediately after you have just strapped her into her seat.

Or the one who left his baseball glove in the backyard.

Or her water bottle on the kitchen counter.

So, to make life easier for you new parents, I’ve figured out the formula to determine the amount of time you will need to get out of your house and into your car when the process involves any number of children.

It is a multi-step process.

1) Find the age of each child and the corresponding number of minutes in the following list:

10 years and older — 1 minute

9 years old — 2 minutes

8 years old — 3 minutes

7 years old — 4 minutes

6 years old — 5 minutes

5 years old — 6 minutes

4 years old — 7 minutes

3 years old — 8 minutes

2 years old — 9 minutes

1   year old — 10 minutes

2) Once you have determined the amount of time necessary for each child, add all those numbers together:

Time to get out of house, strapped into car and pulling out of the driveway = minutes necessary child 1 + minutes necessary child 2, etc.

Let’s use these 3 as an example.

 A 1-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old.

10 + 8 + 7 = 25 minutes.

I will need to allow myself 25 minutes to get ready to leave.

Yep.

That’s just about right.

But that’s not all.

That’s the summer formula.

The winter formula requires a mulitplier of 1.5 to account for

hats,

gloves,

jackets,

boots,

buckling,

tying,

zipping,

and restraining yourself from ripping your own hair out.

So the winter formula for 3 children goes as follows:

Time to get out of house, strapped into car and pulling out of the driveway = [minutes necessary child 1 + minutes necessary child 2 + minutes necessary child 3] x 1.5.

I’ll use the same subjects as before for this example.

In order to get out of the house in the middle of winter,

with these three:

[10 + 8 + 7] x 1.5 = 37.5 minutes.

Now you new parents are really prepared.

Budget your time accordingly.

And stay tuned for tomorrow’s lesson:  How to determine the duration of a temper tantrum.

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