Today, I had a fright… actually two.

The first one was at the park. Nora wanted to go on the big kid slide and I’m never worried about her being on slides… but when she sat down on the slide, she zoomed down so fast that totally surprised me that I could not handle her doing it again… which upset her but I really was too scared! Maybe it’s her jacket… it is pretty smooth… so maybe next time we’ll try again.

The second time, we were in Sainsburys. She pointed out Kermit on a milk bottle and I was just deciding whether to get that bottle of milk rather than the usual one when I turned to look at her and she was not by my side! The aisle was empty apart from me! I just started to call out for her over and over again… it was the longest 20 seconds of my life! When she did come over, around the corner, I just hugged her and told her never to do that again! All it took was two seconds for her to disappear from my side!

Actually, that reminds me of our trip to Malaysia last year when she decided to go to the neighbour’s house and I thought she was with my mom and my mom thought she was with me! We went around the garden screaming her name for what felt like hours (5 minutes tops) and she poked her head out of the neighbour’s door with ‘what’s going on’ look on her face.

So what will happen now? No, I’m not going to put a harness on her. No, I’m not going to stop her free spirit. I guess I should just let her be and be more aware… and grow eyes at the back of my head.