The day I hoped would never come has arrived.

My daughter is a “runner”

When I say that, I don’t mean that she’s ready for her first marathon, or a sponsorship from Nike. I mean she runs. Away.

Gone are the days where she’ll happily sit in her stroller with a cup of snacks. We said “goodbye” to the long, leisurely Target trips, with Avery lounging in the shopping cart seat. Adios, calm grocery shopping trips.

Now, we have screaming, writhing, wriggling out of the harness and seat-belts. Yelling, tantrum throwing, red-faced, angry. The girl wants out and she wants out NOW!!

This would be fine if she’d just hold my hand and walk.  But no, she needs to be FREE!!  She wants to run through the aisles at Stop & Shop. She wants to scurry through Target, scamper through Walgreens, skip through Lowe’s.

Sometimes she is content to push the shopping cart.

But more often than not, she just wants to run.

So now we’re left with a dilemma. “What do we do about this?”  Do we let her run, and just wait for the loud speaker announcement “Will the parents of the tiny red head please report to the starbucks counter where said tiny red head is currently devouring all the cake pops”   Do we force her, screaming and spitting, to stay seated in the shopping cart. Perhaps using duct-tape or bungee cords to keep her there? Do we stay home, and never leave the house again, eventually dying in a hoard and forever being known as the creepy recluse family with 82,000 cats?

Or.

Do we use……

The Leash.

I’m so torn.  I have always seen kids on “leashes (I hate calling them that…) and while I didn’t really LIKE them, I understood them.  Some kids wander off.  Some kids, need the added safety. Some kids are runners.

I never thought it would be MY kid. I never thought MY kid would be a runner.  I never thought I’d even have to consider….a…leash…

Well, She is and I am.

We actually HAVE a leash…. My cousin and her husband bought it for us for Christmas last year. Apparently they somehow KNEW that we’d have a runner on our hands.  My cousin and her husband live in England. And I was surprised that they got us this gift.  I honestly thought that all British children were perfectly well behaved and that only American kids were bold enough to wander off. I always just assumed that the British are so much more….refined and civilized.  Perhaps they are, and my cousin and her husband thought since our baby is American, she’d clearly be full of piss and vinegar and would obviously require restraint. Or maybe they just thought it was cute.

We have this one:

It’s cute, right?  A monkey, hugging a baby is cute. And it’s a backpack, so it’s multi-function. She can carry her own damn diapers snacks or a small toy.  That’s cool, right?  RIGHT?!

I don’t know.  I worry.  I’ve heard horror stories of people’s children being barked at. Parents being berated for treating their child like a dog. We live in a very “crunchy” state.  I imagine us walking through the zoo and being approached by a gaggle of mommies telling me about how I am scaring my child for life and perhaps should try wearing her in an all natural-organic-hemp baby sling.  Or allowing her to run free as nature intended.  The thing is, I have a sling, I have a structured carrier, I have a wrap. We’ve tried the free-range thing. I’ts just not working out for us right now. She kicks me in the gut and head-butts me in the carrier.  If I let her roam free at the zoo she’d end up in the African Wild Dog exhibit trying to cuddle up with the snarling “Day-Dees”  I just don’t know what to do. Well, I DO know what to do, I just don’t know if I can actually do it!

So, what say you, loyal readers??  To leash or not to leash?  That is the question!!