Come back here!

It was an idyllic morning here in the Northeast so I decided to take Little Man to the park. Picture the two of us running around the playground, me catching him at the bottom of the slide as he giggles joyfully, LM squealing with delight as I push him in the swing. That. Is. A. Fantasy.

Reality? I spend an hour running after him hunched over as he is still so unsteady on his fat, little feet that the least variation in the topography - one wood chip too many or an errant twig - sends him toppling over. Add in other factors such as his enormous girth, the fact that he barrels around most times as if Keanu Reeves were behind the wheel of his bus-like body and the close proximity of several slides, and ladders and he's a head wound waiting to happen. The joyful abandon with which he flings himself down the slide regardless of which end is facing forward or whether anyone is there to break his inevitable fall makes me break into a cold sweat whenever I see a playground. And imprisoning him in the swings so I can catch a break and actually talk to another mother for more than two seconds? Puh-lease.

Acting as a human airbag for a tiny, biped tank with a faulty internal gyroscope (seriously, sometimes he just rotates in one spot to make himself fall over) made me wonder during the exhausted car ride home - how the hell did human babies survive in the wild? Think about it. Did cave mothers have to spend their child's entire toddlerhood chasing their progeny around to prevent Grog from cracking his head open? I'm spent just thinking about her life since, you know, her whole house was made of stone. Did cave babies wander off into the woods with abandon as my son does at the local nature preserve, not caring is a saber-toothed tiger was lurking in the bushes?

And it's not just my son. My girls had this freight-train period too (I was pregnant for #1's phase and you don't know back pain until you have to crouch-run after a toddler while expecting). Shouldn't there be some innate protective instinct that protects children from themselves? Yeah, yeah, I've heard all about that instinct babes are supposed to have to prevent them from crawling off an edge. The goose egg my daughter sported for a week pretty much put that theory to bed in our house.

I don't think I'm the only one here. At Madison Square Garden this weekend, I was not alone chasing after Little Man who kept trying to run head-first down the aisle, in the dark, while my older children enjoyed the circus. It was like well dressed calf-roping. But perhaps I'm insane and should stop allowing him so much freedom. I feel too guilty since he spends a large portion of his days in and out of shopping carts of various entertaining varieties (Look! It's a plane! It's a car! Never mind that restraining belt!) as I accomplish my motherly tasks, so when I can let him loose I do. I'll tell you though, whoever thought up those backpack things that are really kid-leashes is a genius. Most people judge parents when they spot one using them, and even though I don't, I still can't get up the nerve to buy one. Let me get a few more weeks into this spring though and I'll probably have one in every shape and color (see above).