Don't Tell Mom!
These are the words that can lead into potentially ill-fated situations. Especially in my case, as an immature adult thrust into a position of childcare. Having "don’t tell mom" at the tip of my tongue at all times has led to me into situations that, if her mother ever found out, would have me in a lot of trouble. A good example of this happened when I teaching Tayla how to scale the playground while we were out on a camping trip.
Before I go any further, it should be noted that Jessyca is an overprotective parent. She’s the parent that will put every piece of padding the Earth possesses on her child before she even lets her ride her bike. This is nothing like me, I am fairly reckless and my life motto would probably be "let’s see how this plays out."
In this particular instance, Jess was tired. She came to me with her famous puppy-dog eyes and asked me to take Tayla to the park so she could nap. I eagerly accepted and rushed off to play at the park. Every time we go, Tayla likes to play tag and I like to win. Not to say I don’t let her tag me, I just make sure it’s a challenge for her, and this is how most of our "don’t-tell-mom" conversations start.
So, with Tayla on my heels, I jumped up the stairs of the play structure and boosted myself up onto the top of the tunnel connecting the two structures. Tayla’s little body stopped as I scooted to the middle of the tunnel and her head tilted slightly.
“Can you help me up?” she asked, suddenly forgetting the game of tag with this new adventure in mind.
The logical part of me screamed that Jess would kill me if she ever found out that I let her up here when there is a six-foot drop. The other part was thinking of how great of a bonding moment this would be for us.
“All right, but don’t tell mom,” I said before scooting over and pulling her up. I sat her beside me and she clung to my arm as she suddenly realized how high off the ground she was. I wrapped my arm around her and held her tightly to me. Looking out at the water across from the park, I rationalized that this moment was worth the chance of Jess catching us.
Photo Credit: Sean Lalonde