Freezing TIme

What an amazing idea, freezing time.  Olivia asked, “Mumma can we freeze time?”  Looking at her with her sting?? face, her little almond blue eyes, almost Chinese, were smiling and her face had a shy expression while playing with her fingers in her lap. Olivia was 8 and she had been growing fast lately.  When kids grow fast some parts of their body and especially their faces grow at different speeds.  They look like a portrait in the works, like somebody was working on it and had to go to do something else for awhile and didn’t quite finish their work.

I have known Olivia since she was two.  She always struck me as a curious kid, sneaky, funny, and advanced for her age.  I would say that she falls into my category of nice.  Her face always tells me that she knows more than we think she does.

She looked at Sherry and asked again, “Mumma, can we freeze time?” Sherry, looking confused, replied, “yeah, I guess.” Olivia retorted quickly, “if we can freeze time can we freeze 7:00 am?” Sherry burst out laughing.  Olivia stared at her, questioning with her expression. “Why would you want to freeze 7:00 am Olivia?” Sherry inquired, getting the gist of the smart question. “If we can freeze 7:00 am we can stay in bed longer in the mornings, we wouldn’t need to get ready to go to school Mumma,” she announced with a smart face, making that grin so characteristic of Olivia.

Olivia still has her sweet tooth??, they are perfect for her face and personality, she has thin blond hair, baby-soft pink skin, a ski-slope nose, rather big for her face but we already discussed that.  She is growing so fast.  Almost no eye brows and a great smile. Her face really portrays her personality, in one word - sting??.

Sherry thought that “freezing time at 7:00 am” was not a bad idea after all and she decided to explore Olivia’s concept a little further.  It was not always that Sherry would further explore Olivia or Samuel’s ideas, there was no time for that.  Between working, cooking, doing laundry, dishes, and cleaning, the day was far too short to spend time elaborating on these kinds of thoughts.  It's tough to be a mother, so much to do and so little time, she always wanted to have time off.   Freezing time would come in handy.

She turned to Olivia who was patiently standing behind her and said, “freezing time at 7:00 am sounds like an awesome idea.  For how long do you think we want to freeze it for?” Sherry asked looking at those sweet blue eyes and stooping to be at eye level with Olivia.  Sherry smiled at Olivia and waited for the answer. Olivia, playing with her hands nervously, said, “for as much as we want Mumma.”  Sherry felt dumb asking such an obvious question. “Well, what would we do in that time?” invited Sherry, keeping the momentum going.

“Well Mumma, we'll stay in bed cuddling for one, you can read to me, we can talk, we can hide under the covers and make a tent.”  She looked at me with her smiling eyes as she was leaning her face sideways, like wanting to get acceptance. “What would you like to do Mumma?” she asked.  Good question Sherry thought, wondering how Olivia had such great questions at this time of the day.   Sherry wondered why she never thought of these questions herself and if she had any creative juices left at all. A not good feeling ran though her body. “What would you like to do Mumma?” she asked again expecting an answer.

“Like you Olivia, I'd like to stay in bed sleeping for while longer and cuddling with you” Sherry responded.  "Don't you want to make a tent under the sheets and play that we are camping in a park Mumma?”  Sherry wondered for a moment, and dug into her memories of when she was as little as Olivia.  She had never thought of freezing time.  "Where did you get the idea of freezing time Olivia?” Sherry asked, caressing her soft hair.  Sherry sat on the bed, bringing Olivia into her arms and sat her on her lap.  It was cozy.

“I don’t know Mumma, it just came to me," Olivia kissed Sherry’s cheek as she said, “I love you Mumma” and stood up and ran to her room.   Sherry smiled and said to herself, "Freezing time is what I need..."