Am I a boy?

The little guy is always asking, "Mom, am I a boy?" When I say yes, he then goes on to ask me the sex of virtually every other person he knows.

Tonight as I was putting him to bed he said, "Mom, I'm a boy but I'm not a garcon." I replied, "Yes you are. Garcon is the French would for boy. Tu es un garcon."

For some reason he always gets really mad at me when I speak to him in French. This time was no exception.

"Mom, don't talk Spanish!" (he's obviously watching too much Dora)

"I was speaking French, not Spanish," I assured him.

When I asked him who had told him he was un garcon he told me A-RG (the little girl from the home daycare he goes to) said he was a garcon whale shark. So I told him that he should tell her that she was a fille whale shark.

Kids are too funny!

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I've been running in to a new parenting challenge these days. The little guy is becoming quite the escape artist. He thinks it's absolutely hilarious to run away from me in public places and head straight for the door.

In the past he wasn't strong enough to actually open the door so the behaviour didn't freak me out quite so much. But now he is able to actually escape outside....in the winter...with no jacket on...into parking lots. You see why this has me concerned?

Last week after playgym, hubby went outside to pull the car around while the little guy and I suited up. I knew there was a chance he would make a break for it based on events from weeks past, so I made him hold me hand and stay close. I also instructed him firmly that he needed to stay with mommy. Wouldn't you know it, he bolted the second I let go of him for a second to zip up my boot. For those of you who know me, I'm a pretty darn fast runner. But the little guy is Ben Johnson on steroids fast (I'm only slightly exaggerating here).

Within seconds he was around the corner, down the hall and out the back of the building (hubby was pulling the car around the front of the building). My heart was pounding out of my chest as I ran out of the building after him and watched him sprint into a parking lot full of cars. I grabbed his arm and yanked him back from the parking lot. This is about the time I completely forgot all of the wisdom from my Elizabeth Pratley parenting books on "anger management". Boy did I ever yell at him. Normally I'd feel remorseful about this but, quite frankly, it was important at the moment for him to see how upset I was about the danger he had put himself into. What if I hadn't seen where he had gone and caught him in time? Being the typical 3-year old that he is, he thought my wild eyed yelling was all very funny. (Has this ever happened to you? Seriously, is there anything more infuriating?)

His laughter died off pretty quickly when we discovered that there were no handles on the outside of the doors. Our choices were to bang on the window and hope that someone noticed us, or to walk around to the front of the building. I decided to take him on a walk. It was very cold that night and he is what you could call a "cold weather wimp." I figured that it would teach him a good lesson, particularly since the recreation centre is gi-normous. We literally had to walk a full city block in the icy cold wind to get around to the front. The little guy protested loudly and burst into tears. I explained to him that we wouldn't be in such a mess if he had listened and stayed with mommy like I had asked. While the yelling didn't work, the cold walk seemed to drive my point home.

I was convinced that this experience had cured him of his running away habit. But no. He's done it three or four times since.

I was mentioning this to a friend of mine over the weekend and she said, "Why don't you get him a leash?" She was dead serious. I've always felt hatred and contempt for parents who put their kids on leashes.

"That's so humiliating!" I replied.

"That's the whole point," she said. "Make him walk on a leash for a few days and he'll never run away again."

She does raise a good point....but there is not way I'm going that route. Frankly I think it would be more humiliating for me than it would be for him.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with runaways?