Running Away

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Chris!! I promised him that I would not do an ooey gooey post talking about how he is the best husband in the world (which is true of course), but would just save all of my ooey gooeyness for him in person. So, on to normal posting:

Do you remember the first time you wanted to run away from home? I remember mine. I was probably 4 or 5, got mad at my Mom for something, and insisted on running away to my Aunt Stephanie and Cousin Scott’s house. Mom drove me over there, as any good mom would do (she was probably pretty fed up with me too, and happy to have the excuse to let me go somewhere else!!). I had a blast that day and night, but then was quite disenchanted with the idea the next morning when Steph announced that it was time to go to daycare. I was ready to go home! They made me go to daycare to make sure that the consequences of running away from home stuck with me, and they did – I can’t remember another time of wanting to run away from home.

I am pretty sure that Ali had her first experience of wanting to run away from home today. I kept her up a little longer than usual so that we could go eat lunch at Zaxby’s with Daddy for his birthday. She’s usually fairly well-behaved when we go out to eat, but the combination of waking up earlier than usual and her nap being delayed longer than usual wreaked havoc with her emotions, and she was quite the pill. It was one of those meals where I got to eat about 5 bites of food, and the rest of the time was spent trying to help her eat/be happy. She was told lots of “no’s” and had many things taken away from her, like her dip for turning it upside down repeatedly (rabbit trail – a little cup of cole slaw is a GREAT dip – it gives her the pleasure of dipping, but without the unbelievable mess. I discovered this accidentally last time we went to Zaxby’s when she kept wanting to use my cole slaw as dip). At one point, nothing was making her happy, so I just had to restrain her in my lap for a few minutes. Needless to say, she was not happy with Mommy.

All the way home from lunch, she was saying “Mamma, Pop!” (Mamma is what she calls my Mom – its supposed to be Gramamma). When we got home and I came around to get her out of the car (something she’s usually excited about), she shook her head and said “uh uh. Mamma!!”.

I got her out of the car, and she wrinkled her brow, looked at me with the most confused/sad look on her face, and said pitifully, “I so sad!!!” My heart broke for her. This was the first time that she has ever verbalized her emotions to me, and she was so confused by them!! I told her that it was ok, and explained to her how we all get sad when we are sleepy, and that she will be sooo happy when she wakes up from her nap! I told her I was sorry she was sad, and all the way to bed, she said “I so sorry. I so sorry.” I’m not sure if she was sorry about being a pill at lunch or just sorry that she was sad, but I accepted her apology anyway.