A couple of country bumpkins on a Sunday stroll

Sometimes the toddler experience is a lesson in parenthood that you don't fully grasp until later. Case in point: Caroline and I walked down the front steps of our porch, heading, I thought, for the car to go to church. I get to the car, fling all our stuff into the back seat, then turn to load her up. In the three-and-a-half seconds it takes me to get to the car, she has become a tiny black speck trekking across the yard toward the lower field.


She stops briefly as I yell for her to come back. The cat she was apparently fetching heeds my call and heads back toward the house.

Caroline does not. She turns and keeps heading for the river. I have no idea where she's going or why she's totally ignoring my shouts.

I can do nothing but chase her down, through weeds wet as a marsh and as high as her shoulders.

At church, I spend 10 minutes plucking stick-tights off my pants, to the amusement of several congregants, most of whom are city folk. My friend David, who lives in the boondocks near us and happens to be an expert in fish, bugs, birds, weeds and most all things environmental, informs me that the seed in a stick-tight is edible. So we stand in the worship hall and each eat one.

Now that tidbit might come in handy if I ever find myself stranded in a big field in danger of starving to death, but the true lesson learned was that a focused 2-year-old can cross the state line before you have time to lock the front door.

We're keeping our front door locked these days.