There is nothing like the first few minutes with your child after you return from a trip.  It’s happiness and love and filled with hugs.  That’s what it was like yesterday with Woo, upon my return from Blissdom.  He leapt into my arms and joyfully filled my ears with tales from the weekend.  Goose, on the other hand, was a different story.  She arrived in tears and clung to me.  She started by telling me about the crimes that her brother had just committed by pushing her out of the way to get to me, and ended with telling me about getting lost in the tunnels. 

My heart skipped a beat, and I calmed her enough to tell me about the tunnels.  From what I could piece together, there is an exhibit at the Science and Technology Museum that involves some slides or tunnels and Goose was in them, alone, and got lost.  She didn’t know where to go or what to do so she just stood there and cried til her brother found her.  Irrational me immediately thought about what sort of person would send a four year-old girl into the tunnels, alone, crying – likely for hours and finally sending a six year old deep inside to rescue her.  Willy. That terrible, horrible monster.

Rational me took over and I talked to her about how awesome it was that Woo looked out for her and how the tunnels were still such a fun place, and then waited to talk Willy about it later.  Sure enough, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Goose had successfully navigated the tunnels once, she just got turned around. When Goose didn’t come out of the one slide (there were only two), Willy sent Woo down the path to the other slide while he waited at the bottom to make sure that she wasn’t alone when she did pop out.

The reality is that our lils are growing up, and we want them to be independent, so they are going to get stuck in tunnels occasionally.  She was fine, and it is not likely to have any sort of lasting impression.  I, on the other hand, need to make sure that it is the rational me that lets the lils go off into the tunnels of the world, knowing that they are going to get lost on occasion.  Getting lost is part of it.