The Crow is Being Cooked As We Speak
By Glinda
I did the one thing parents are never supposed to do.
And now I’m paying for it, big time.
Quite a while ago, I made a generalization about parents who use leashes in this post.
Of course, that was before I was pregnant with the Munchkinette and had the smugness of a parent who thinks she is done raising her kids.
I should have known better than to tempt fate like that.
Because I looked at my husband yesterday and said, “If I don’t buy a leash for this child, she is never going to be able to go out in public.”
Stubborn, defiant, and reckless do not even begin to describe her. When we are out in the front yard playing with big brother and the neighbors, her favorite thing to do is zoom toward the street at full speed, laughing and looking back at my panicked face the entire time. Thank God we live on a cul de sac that gets little to no traffic.
Never mind that I have told her a bazillion times not to go into the street. Never mind that I constantly try to hold her hand and she impatiently tries to shake me off every single time.
And she’s only seventeen months old, so this entire process is only going to get worse.
I tweaked out my back from having to constantly stoop and chase her around, and that was just for an hour and a half in our own yard.
So after I write this, I am pretty sure I’ll be going online and searching for a kids leash that she hopefully won’t try to pull off.
Now, where’s my fork?
March 30th, 2011 at 7:52 am
Last summer, when our youngest was 18 mos old, we attended a 4th of July evening cook-out on the roof of a 3-story building (good view of area fireworks). That’s when the monkey leash entered our lives, as it sounds as if our toddler and yours share certain personality traits. The “harness” is a little stuffed monkey that fits her like a back-pack, and the leash can be detached from the back.
My daughter loves her monkey. She hugs the monkey. She sleeps with the monkey. Sometimes she just wears it around the house for fun. And though I have been publicly snickered at for keeping my poor toddler on a leash in crowds, at least I don’t have to worry about her yanking her little hand away from mine and running headfirst into traffic (which she will TOTALLY try to do). Better public humiliation than a heartwrenching visit to an ER!
March 30th, 2011 at 9:18 am
I’ve always thought a leash for errant children was a great idea, but I don’t have kids.
March 30th, 2011 at 10:35 am
I’m with Marvel on this one. Some kids just love to bolt. And that should never be taken as evidence of the parents parenting skills. Some kids are just naturally more impulsive and heedless.
I think what a lot of people don’t get is that the backpack/leash can be very useful as a fail-safe device, WHILE you’re teaching the child to stay close.
And yes, some kids take a lot longer to learn that lesson. With almost everything else, we accept that kids develop at their own pace. We don’t cry “bad parenting” if a child walks or talks a bit later than his peers. We reassure them and say, “Oh, they all develop at their own pace. It’ll happen – just be patient.” So why are we so damned insistent that as soon as a child learns to walk, that he should be 100% able to calmly and consistently hold his Mommy’s hand and never run away from her?
People look at it as solely a discipline thing, but it’s not. It’s a development thing. And demanding that all small toddlers master impulse control? That’s ridiculous.
March 30th, 2011 at 10:37 am
Oh, and for the record, I have a backpack leash for my 19-month old. It’s a teddy bear and he loves it. He’s really good about staying by my side and holding my hand, but if we’re in a crowded situation or near traffic, I put it on him anyway. It only takes one time, right?
Staying by Mommy’s side is a lesson I want him to learn. But I don’t want him to learn it the hard way.
March 31st, 2011 at 8:19 pm
I hear you. My daugher is a runner. We had a nifty little number that could also be used to buckle her into a chair. It was a cute but sturdy piece of fabric that fit kind of like a backwards vest. It was indispensable when we traveled to Italy around her 2nd birthday. When we were at the airport she could run off steam without me worrying about her getting lost or run over. And unlike the backpack I could just leave it on while she was sitting down. We also had the monkey backpack which she loved.
Be careful though. One time I had the monkey backpack on and she tried to make a break. She ended up hitting the end of the tether and bouncing into the counter in front of us. Although on the positive side, she didn’t end up running out in front of someone else’s shopping cart!
April 6th, 2011 at 11:40 am
I still don’t know how I feel about leashes. Sometimes they’re awfully appealing to me, especially on those bad days when a hundred foot walk from the van to the grocery store carts makes me have 3.5 heart attacks.
Most time my girl is good at not bolting. She knows to stay off the road when we go for a walk, but once she’s in a parking lot it’s like one giant playground for her. I can control her in every situation we’ve been in… So far.
We’re currently expecting our second though and once they’re both walking… I might be dreaming of harnesses.