Lesson Learned.

I made my daughter walk about 2km today. Maybe I was a bit overzealous. It started out innocently enough, with a one block trip to the mailbox and the intention of heading to the park to burn a couple of hours before dinner. Then an over-ambitious mom decided to check out our new dance studio first and maybe buy a pair of scrubs.

In fairness, I did give her the choice of walking or taking her tricycle.

In fairness, she is two-and-a-half with absolutely no sense of time and distance.

At any rate, it could have gone much worse. She did a pretty great job of walking there, and was saved by the rain when we ducked into a gazebo for a snack just as her enthusiasm was starting to wane.

Funny though, once we made it to the studio she started doing weird things like demanding more snacks and lying down on the floor. Can't imagine what she was trying to tell me. Then of course the snack that she picked out sucked and she flatly refused to cross the threshold of the scrubs store. Weird.

Then I did what any self-preserving parent would do and aborted mission, only to suffer the slings and arrows of a child who didn't-really-want-to-actually-leave-and-now-REALLY-wants-to-go-shopping-and-oh-hell-I'm-so-exhausted-I'm-not-sure-who-you-are...and walked home. Alllllll the way home. With a couple of stops to address the following issues:

"I don't WANT to leave!"
"I don't WANT you to be disappointed!"
"I want ANOTHER snack!"
"I LOVE you mama!"
"Can we go to the park now?"

with the following replies:

"Coulda fooled me."
"And yet.."
"Not likely."
"Yeah, well, there's that."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"