Yesterday Elle was holding one of our new pet rats and teasing Gabe with it. She wouldn't let him hold it and he would cry so finally I picked up the rat and told them the rat was on time out for a few minutes. Elle started to cry and ran downstairs, like I thought she would. After a few minutes I went down to check on her and she had a purse on and was putting her shoes on. "mommy!, I'm leaving!" She said. I knew this day would come, the phase that every kid has where they run away from home because Mommy is just sooooo mean. "oh, are you running away from home?" I said calmly. "I'm really going to miss you."

"yes! I'm going to find a new home! I packed my pajamas. Can I call you Janae from now on?"
"Sure, you can call me Janae."
"Janae? can you help me put my shoes on?"
"hmmmm, I think if you're going to run away you need to learn to do things yourself because I won't be there to help anymore."
She then proceeded to scream at her shoes for not being able to get them on.
"Fine! I won't run away from home, I'm just going out to meet some new people. Maybe someone across the street. Don't worry, I'll look both ways."
"okay, I"ll help you put your shoes on."
So Elle get's up with her shoes on, throws on a light jacket, and walks out the door without a word.
10 seconds later she comes back in. It was way too cold out. I gave her the rat to play with and all was well again.

Later that night over dinner we recounted how Elle had tried to run away from home for Beau. At the end when I said she came right back because it was too cold Elle mumbled to her Dad, "yeah, I had no choice". Beau and I burst out laughing and so did Elle. Good times. I'm glad we got through our first running away from home incident. Little does she know that when you  finally do get to run away from home for good, you have to pay for everything, no one does your laundry,  no one is there to kiss boo boo's, and you wish you could go back.

Happy Green Patty's day from Elle!