That's right. Carolyn's getting a leash. I'm sure it will be very nice, and not at all frowned upon by the mothering community. After all, it's a caring, compassionate group of people.
You see, Carolyn has been "off" the stroller now for like a year. As a very judgemental person, I find most parents push their children around in strollers for far too long. And I get real judgey when I see a 4-year-old getting pushed around in a stroller, especially a fat kid. Take the time to teach them walking rules and let em walk, I say.
Well, that was until about three days ago when Carolyn learned running away from us is really, really fun. She has been stopping at corners and holding hands to cross streets for almost a year, but no more.
Today at farmer's market, she took off and came inches, and I do mean inches, from running in front of a car driving at least 30 miles per hour. Even writing this now puts me on the verge of tears and gives me a sick feeling in the stomach. Just inches.
So I'm swinging, in various degrees, between feeling like the worst parent in the world and feeling like being a pedestrian in a car-centric world is sadly impossible. Probably both, in varying degrees, is true.
This is why I need a kid leash. I can't expect Carolyn at 2 and a half to go back to using a stroller, and she totally can't be trusted, even though she sat quietly next to me at the bus stop for about 20 minutes after giving some poor woman just driving down the street a freakin' heart attack, sensing something really awful just happened. But it doesn't matter because my whole life can't come down to a few inches.
1 comment:
Those are one of those memories that, many years later, you can't remember ...until someone points them out (sometimes you totally forget them.) They are just too bad, too emotional. Can't live with them. So we forget them. I KNOW I've got one somewhere, but I won't remember it. Too awful.
There is that time I fell asleep and left my little 15 year old standing alone in the late night dark parking lot at her school with no way to call me and wake me up because I was supposed to pick her up.
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