Shy. I Think.

Today we had a day off to celebrate the fact that this country has presidents.  Or the fact that those presidents were born.  Or something.

Anyway, if I get a day off I’m down with it.

Wait, where was I?  Oh, of course, a day off.  We had one, which meant I had the rare opportunity to meet some of the other moms from church for a playdate.  Originally we had planned a day at the park,  but 45 degrees seemed a little chilly, so we moved it into a local Chick Fil A playground.  I arrived a little late, and put the mackerdoodle in the play area, under the careful eye of the other mothers and fetched myself a chicken biscuit and coffee.  When  I returned a moment later, she hadn’t moved.  She was still standing there,  watching the other children climb and slide.  Eventually there were some tears and the mackerdoodle spent most of her time sitting on my lap.  Despite her lack of enthusiasm for the playground, we still had a nice visit.

So the time came to gather our children and head home for little things like naps and daddy hugs.  We were the last to leave, and as I sat her down in the playground to put on her shoes, the mackerdoodle ran through the now empty playground, and spent twenty minutes climbing stairs, and crawling through tubes, and calling “Mah-meee” happily just to hear her own echo.  Twenty minutes, while her pregnant mother sat there hoping I wasn’t going to have to wedge my blossoming bump body into one of those tubes to rescue my daughter.  I didn’t.  Fortunately.

She did stop playing.  When another group of children came through the glass doors my mackerdoodle scampered away from the echoey tubes like they had suddenly been filled with snakes.  She fell asleep in the van on the way home, and I know she had fun, but I’m wondering if this is an 18 month old thing, or a mackerdoodle becoming anti-social thing.