The other day Ruthie and I walked down the street to get our hair cut. On the way home she ran ahead of me, turning her head to see if I was watching how fast she was running. I contorted my body in all sorts of directions as she approached a tree on the edge of the sidewalk, not really finding the words to warn her in my panic. She turned just in time to see the tree, but still bumped into it and fell back onto her bum.
In these situations, sadly, my first response tends to be laughter – because it was kind of funny, and I could see she was okay.
She was more stunned and embarrassed than she was hurt. Nonetheless, as she continued to run down the sidewalk she would holler, “OH NO! TREE!†and veer hard right to get out of its path.
This was problematic since we were planning a camping trip in the woods.
With lots of trees.
But her wariness of trees didn’t last long, and we were able to camp in a grove of trees without any one of them running into her.