And She's Off

It started innocently enough.  My mom was in town for a few days, so we took Morgan to a little Fall Festival.  After the debacle a few weeks ago, we decided to go during the day.  We let Morgan choose her own activities and have a little freedom...oh yeah, and the whole thing was fenced in so the stakes were really low. Ultimately, she opted to ride a pony, feed a goat, and even watch a pig race (we're in Idaho, cut me some slack).

As Morgan gets older, we are often trying to find opportunities to give her a little more independence.  She doesn't always have to ride in a cart at the grocery store and she occasionally gets to sit at the table (rather than tightly safely strapped to a high chair) when we go out to dinner.  The outcome is generally a catastrophe, but we're trying.

This little outing was no exception.  As we wandered through the pumpkin patch, Morgan got that crazy look in her eye.  You know the one, it's the one that says, "Hey, I see you.  And I also see that you're too far away to stop me from what I'm about to do.  I'm about to be naughty and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."  

Exhibit A:  Crazy Look

And so she started running. She ran through the pumpkins, stopping only long enough to make sure I wasn't gaining on her (I wasn't).



Exhibit B: The back of my daughter's head.

Then we got to the corn maze.  My worst fear.  I had just read an article about a family who called 911 when they couldn't find their way out and I was not ABOUT to make my own mortifying headlines.  So I chased her. And she kept running.



Exhibit C:  Still the back of her head.



By now, our little adventure had turned from funny and slightly sweaty (don't forget, I was also running), to absolutely petrifying. The whole point of a maze is that you have the potential to get lost.  Not very promising when your daughter appears to have inherited your husband's sense of direction (David regularly gets lost in our neighborhood.  We've lived there for 6 years.).

Exhibit D: Again, the back of her head... just REALLY far away.

I eventually caught up to her, but only because she had gotten distracted by some corn stalks.  She looked up at me with those big brown eyes and it took everything in me not to have a holy come-apart.  I wanted to yell at her not to run away, that the world is scary and I don't want to ever lose her.  But I didn't.  Instead, I remembered that she's three and her life should be joyous.  It's my job to worry...and to learn how to run faster.