Our Little Run Away

Do any of you remember running away from home? I do, but it wasn't until I was in Jr. High! Aspen surprised us the other night by telling us she was catching the bus and running away from home! What! Where in the world did our 6 year old come up with this plan. Basically what happened is that her dad had gotten mad at her for playing with our neighbors mailbox. She opened it and some of their mail fell out. He told her that tampering with other people's mail is a federal offense and she needed to go and pick it up. There was no screaming or tears. She simply went over, picked up their mail and headed back to the house. She was up in her room for a minute and just as I was wondering what she was up to, she came walking down the stairs with her purse, a rolling backpack and her My Twinn doll. When I asked her what she was doing, this was her response. "Mom, I don't know how to tell you this but I am running away from home. I am so mad at my dad. He hurt my feelings and I need to leave!" I was shocked but simply said, "Okay honey, I am sorry you feel that way. Your daddy wasn't trying to hurt your feelings and I know he loves you very much. But if you need to go, then I guess you need to go." I think she was surprised by my reaction. Zach was there but couldn't say anything because he was trying so hard not to laugh. We made sure she had a jacket and her favorite stuffed animal and we asked her how she was going to get to where she needed to go. She said she was going to take the bus. The bus doesn't actually come into our neighborhood but we humored her anyway. She knows she can't go past the corner stop sign so we wondered just how far she would go. Here are some pictures of her leaving. We had to get the camera for this one. It is a little bit blurry because it was taken through the window of our house.


Here is one of her looking back to see if anyone is watching her. Of course we were!


Here is one of her waiting for the bus. She never did pass the stop sign.


We gave her about 10 minutes and then Zach went out and got her. He told her he was sorry that her feelings had been hurt and that he loved her. She decided to come home. We are glad she did. We would have missed her terribly :-).