Something has changed in Lily this last week. It’s like a switch has been flipped and it’s amazing to witness. And a bit frightening. On Monday Lily and I got in the car to go to the post office, I decided to make a quick stop at the gardening store to get some garlic. While I was talking to the lady about how to plant garlic Lily pushed her way past me and said to the woman “my name is Lily and this is Minnie”, she held up Minnie Mouse and proceeded to talk to the woman the rest of the time we were there. This was the first time my child has EVER said anything to an adult stranger other than Meow or on very rare occasions a very timid hi. There was nothing timid about this kid. I was shocked. When we got outside I praised her and realized I had better start in with the stranger danger talk. For almost 4 years I haven’t had to worry about that because Lily never talked to anyone and was attached to me like a barnacle, a really cute barnacle but a barnacle none the less.

While I drove to the post office my brain was working overtime on how to tell Lily about strangers. As we left the post office I told Lily and talking to people was a nice thing, but she shouldn’t talk to people if Mom or Dad weren’t around. I had also noticed that she hadn’t spoke to anyone at the post office and asked why. “Men are strangers so I can’t talk to them” she informs me. I laughed and agreed.

Today we went to the library and Papa Murphy’s and Lily was like a little chatty bird the whole time. While I looked for books for her she tried to talk to a little girl and the girl ignored Lil. Lil walked up to me and pronounced “that girl was mean and didn’t say hi to… Oh that girl looks nice” and off she went to talk to the other girl. Luckily this other girl was much nicer than the first one and they ended up talking for a couple of minutes. It was so cute. When we were checking our books out she chatted with the librarian and when we got out pizza she talked non-stop with the cashier.

As we walked out of Papa Murphy’s I told her how she was getting so big and I was so proud of her for talking to people, but reminded her that she shouldn’t talk to people that we don’t know if Me or Daddy aren’t around and she said “well you are here so it’s fine”. I giggled and agreed.

This parenting gig is something else. You think you’ve got everything under control and know how to do this kid thing and then they change the rules.