I went to the Fireweed Market yesterday afternoon to pick up our weekly order of locally-produced goat’s milk. We’re trying as much as possible to subsitute it for cow’s milk for Jade, since it’s easier to digest and is free of hormones and antibiotics and so forth.
It was a windy day, not one that encourages loitering; Jade insisted that I carry her, and I did, despite my back, because it would have otherwise taken 20 minutes to cross the parking lot. I headed purposefully for the booth and put Jade down to ready my cloth bag. Jade wanted to be picked up. Since I was busy, she reached her arms out to the woman standing behind me, who was delighted to pick her up.
One of the women at the booth thought she saw something in one of the Ziploc bags of milk I was given, so she took it back for a closer look. I glanced back and was shocked when I realized that the woman holding Jade wasn’t behind me anymore. Then I saw that she had moved back just a few feet so that Jade could interact with a baby that another woman was wearing in a wrap. I turned back to the folks in the booth, hoping they would hurry.
I glanced at Jade again. She was holding her arms out to someone else. And then to another person. All these people were delighted to hug her, but she was getting farther and farther away and I didn’t know if these people knew who she belonged to, or if they figured she was lost or what. I kept calling out to her to come back.
I know it’s unlikely that a total stranger would kidnap her. I also don’t believe that “don’t talk to strangers” is exactly a reasonable rule. But I do think she needs to learn to be a littler warier. How do you teach an affectionate 2-year-old to limit her sociability? I guess we shouldn’t let her be picked up by strangers anymore, but it gives both her and the other person so much pleasure and it makes me laugh, too. (When I’m not stuck at a booth, that is.)
Finally — finally! — I was just handed a different bag of milk. I shoved it into my cloth bag and rushed away to grab Jade, who’d just been given a French fry by her latest conquest. “I hope that’s okay,” the woman said. I couldn’t have cared less, I was just so glad to get Jade back.
It wasn’t until I got her all buckled into her carseat that I realized I hadn’t paid for the milk. Argh!
