If You Were Two

If you were a two year old, walking your brother to the bus this morning, you might:

Try and race your brother to the bus stop, moving your arms and legs as fast as you can.
Point out the birds you see on the power line.
Show Mom your friends house on the way down the hill.
Stop and ask for a hand to help you cross the street for the first time ever.
Sit in time out at the bus stop for ignoring Mom when she asked you to get out of the neighbors yard next to the bus stop.
Sit on Mom’s lap sucking your thumb and playing with your ear until Mom said you could get up.
On the way back up the hill, you might take Mom’s hand to cross the street again. Mom is left wondering where this sudden caution has come from.
You stop the watch the busy bees on the flowers and be sure and tell mom bees are working and you can’t touch them. You try and count them, up to 10, missing number 6, because you never say 6 when you are counting.
You know there is a spider in her web in the garden next to the sidewalk at Mrs. Smith’s house. You must stop at the web, look for the spider and tell her good morning.
A few more steps up the hill, you might sit down suddenly and tell Mom you want your shoes off. After some discussion, you decide it would be better to wait until you got back into your house to take your shoes off.
You see the garbage truck and stop to watch him empty some trash cans near your house. Then you listen to his truck beep as he tries to back half way down the street in search of a place to turn around. For some reason unknown to Mom, big green trucks fascinate you.
As we approach our house, you might hear the dogs barking from the window next door. You look for them and squeal with excitement. You are happy to hear from them, and equally happy they aren’t outside jumping on you.
You might notice the sprinklers going in our yard in an effort to grow some grass. You go to the closest sprinkler and try messing with it, because that’s what you see mom doing every day.
As we get to our front door, you see our cat and squeal again, trying to convince the cat to come in the house with us. She doesn’t want too. You decide to ask Mom for more milk instead.

And so, at barely 8:40, you have had a busy day outside in the sunshine. If you were a Mom, walking to the bus this morning with a two year old, you might have walked down, and walked back, thinking only of what’s next on your to-do list, wondering how you can get it all done, and missed the wonder of a two-year-old’s world. You might, if you weren’t walking with this amazing two-year-old. If only we could all be two again, just for a little while.