I think everyone can relate to this especially when we remeber our childhood or have a very healthy inner child.

Date:   4/2/2006 8:39:11 AM ( 18 y ago)

Just A Few More Minutes.

By Sara Henderson

Just a few more minutes. please, Mommy!"

Although my own children were grown, I found myself turning
instinctively in the direction of the little voice.

He was trailing after his mother, looking reluctantly over his shoulder
at a display of remote-control toys in the large department store.

He couldn't have been more than four years old. With chubby cheeks and
wispy blond hair, he trotted behind his mother down the main aisle of
the department store. His boots caught my eye. They were green. Really
green. Bright, shiny, Kermit-the-Frog green. Obviously new and a little
too big, these were perfect boots for the rainy transition from summer
to fall.

He stopped abruptly at a display of full-length mirrors, lifting one
foot at a time, grinning and admiring his boots until his mother called
for him to catch up to her.

I smiled at the picture he made clumping noisily behind his mother. I
found myself wondering if she had just picked him up from daycare after
a busy day in an office somewhere. I sighed as I selected an item and
put it in my own cart. My days of trying to juggle a full-time job and
two small children had been busy, sometimes even hectic, but I missed
them.

Finishing my own shopping, I forgot about the little boy and his mother
until I stepped outside the store. There a panorama unfolded before me.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, perforating the numerous puddles in
the parking lot. Several mothers with their small children were hurrying
in and out of the department store. The children were, of course,
making beelines to the puddles that dotted their way from the cars to the
store's entrance. The mothers were right behind them, scolding.

"Get away from that puddle!"

"You'll ruin your shoes!"

"What's the matter with you? Are you deaf? I said, Get out of that
puddle!"

And so it continued. The children were being pulled away from the
puddles and hurried along.

All except for one.the little green-booted boy.

He and his mother were not rushing anywhere. The boy was happily
splashing away in the largest puddle in the parking lot, oblivious to the
rain and to the people coming and going. His wispy hair was plastered to
his head and a huge smile was plastered on his face. And his mother? She
put up her umbrella, adjusted her packages and waited. Not scolding,
not rushing. Just watching.

As she fished her car keys out of her purse, the boy, hearing the
familiar jingling, paused in mid-splash and looked up.

"Just a few more minutes? Please, Mommy?" he begged.

She hesitated, and then she smiled at him. "Okay!" she responded and
adjusted her packages again.

By the time I got to my car, loaded my packages and was ready to ease
out of my parking space, the green-booted boy and his mother were
walking toward their car, smiling and talking.

How many times had my own children begged for "just a few more
minutes"?

Had I smiled and waited like the mother of the green-booted boy? Or had
I scolded?

Just a few more minutes of giggling and splashing in the bathtub. So
what if bedtime got pushed back a little?

Just a few more minutes of rocking a sleepy toddler. So what if toys
were strewn around the room, littering the floor?

Just a few more minutes of life with them before they were grown and
gone. So what if my career goals didn't fit my original timeline?

Just a few more minutes. Everything I have read about time management
for working mothers can be summed up in the one picture of that young
mother standing under her umbrella, arms full of packages, smiling at a
wet, green-booted boy who had asked her the universal time-management
question for working mothers everywhere, "Just a few more minutes?"


 

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