Tuesday, Feb. 05 2013 5:27PM
Crawling with the 2-year-old
By John Beaudoin
jbeaudoin@lsjournal.com
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ReprintI love being in downtown Lee’s Summit with Addy.
And as long as things are going her way, she loves it, too.
The problem is, she’s getting old enough now where the stroller just isn’t going to be a viable option for too much longer.
Addy has been amazing to travel with, for sure. So I cannot complain.
We’ve spent many a Friday night at Music in the Park, strolling downtown in said stroller, weaving in and out of Maggie’s, Cameron’s, the Whistle Stop, virtually without an issue.
I knew it had to come to an end at some point.
We started this past weekend’s Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street Chocolate Crawl in the stroller. And we finished on foot. It had to happen eventually.
Addy did fine as we entered City Hall, immediately asking for dada to open up the bright-yellow chocolate bar courtesy of the city with the Yours Truly brand prominently displayed on the front.
She got a small square to start, knowing full well we had a day of chocolate ahead of us.
It seems no matter where I tucked that open chocolate bar, though, Addy would find it. We hit the Cookie Jar Bakery with the cute Teddy Graham-dipped-in-chocolate creation, and she looked for the chocolate bar.
Chocolate chip cookies surrounded us, and the shiny bar was what had her attention. I even tempted her with a Neighborhood Café chocolate cinnamon roll. Not interested. More for me, I suppose.
By the time we made it to coffee and over to Mingle, Addy was done – with the stroller.
“Out, out…” she mildly demanded.
So, that was that. My daughter was on the loose. And once she is out, there is no putting her back in.
By the time we arrived at Mingle, she had forgotten about the chocolate bar and was ready to color on a stack of paper inside the restaurant. And while she was distracted by red construction paper, I had my eyes on the chocolate-chip-bacon cookies.
“This is really happening,” I thought. They were amazing.
Of course, the long walk back the Journal was compounded by the fact that Addy got a hold of a piece of sidewalk chalk and stopped every 10 yards to draw something.
The only thing more distracting than the chocolate, it seems, was a fat piece of chalk and endless cement.
Fortunately, Addy seemed to forget about all the chocolate we had collected during our day, not bothering to ask again for more the entire weekend – until a few nights ago, when she spotted that yellow wrapper in the refrigerator.
“Chocolate!” she screamed.
“Addy, let’s go build a fort in the living room!”
“OK!”
It’s all about the distractions. I’m glad I am learning something on this parenting ride.
