Editor’s note: While Patty Kimerer is on leave, we present this Classic Kimerer column originally published March 5, 2006:

It is incredible, the amount of life the average person spends waiting.

Consider the minutes you’ve racked up while in road traffic, grocery store lines, or biding your time outside a public restroom. Heck, I even waited in line to get into the entrance line at the Chevrolet Centre not long ago.

And while waiting can be difficult, there’s something even more taxing out there, folks. Contrary to what you may have been lead to believe, it’s the waiting ON that is really the hardest part.

A good many of you know of what I speak — it’s the curse of Mommydom. In fact, loosely translated into English from some obscure languages in faraway cultures — such as Topeka — “mother” and “waiter” are actually the same word.

From locating that lost soccer sock to honing in on the hiding honey pot to revealing the chameleon ketchup container, Sherlock Mom is on the case from dusk till dawn — and the task is unending.

Oh sure, there’s the physical act of waiting, which kicks off maternal life. First of all, there are the nine months it takes before you even get to set eyes on your little cherub. These seem eternal, particularly in the ankle-swelling, elastic-waistline busting 40th week of gestation, to be sure.

But, before the hellos are even made, there’s more waiting awaiting. Think sleeping through the night, teething trauma and diaper duty. These are all chores for which we cannot you-know-what to pass us by.

And, when Mommies graduate from waiting to waiting on, the gods bestow a doctorate-level degree.

“Maaa — hhhh — mmm! I need help,” is the class fight song at Whine University.

And whether it’s assistance finding the remote control in time to catch the end of the world’s most popular animated action adventure, whipping up a batch of cookies at midnight for the morning bake sale someone forgot to mention for the past two months or piling half the kindergarten class in the minivan for an afternoon matinee showing of “Seussical the Musical,” it’s Professor Mother to the rescue.

The waiting on, my friends, is a constant curriculum. Students are both wee ones and non-trads.

“Mommy, have you seen my backpack? Aunt Patty, could I get another Rice Krispy treat? Honey, can you get me my screwdriver? Patty, where are my running pants?”

Yep, the waiting on is hardest on certain parts of your body, namely, your aging knees and back. Yet, oddly enough, the waiting on is as good as it gets.

What I mean is, we need to be careful not to wish it away TOO soon.

Because, when I heaped a second scoop of vanilla ice cream into Kyle’s bowl the other night and he reacted as though I’d plopped two fistfuls of gold into his midst, it hit me that the nights of such sundae sensations are going to disappear almost as fast as that cold treat.

So, as for anticipating a time when my little boy no longer asks me to mix him some of my extra-special Yummy eggs or to stand outside his bedroom door until he drifts off to sleep — or heaven forbid, the day when he stops calling me “Mommy” — well, for that, I can certainly wait.

Wait on Kimerer at pkimerer@zoominternet.net.