Last night Jaden got mad at me and 'ran away from home' for the first time. I stood in the rain with an umbrella (amused) to watch him wander around the backyard, trying to figure out where he wanted to go live.
He came back to take the umbrella from me with a "thank you," and left again. While I went to get another umbrella his dad made him come back because he was wandering out of sight.
He was still grumpy so, in my pjs, I asked him if he wanted to take a walk in the rain with me. We wandered the sidewalks as the rain started pouring even harder. I told him I was very glad he came back, because I would miss doing these things with him. He replied "I didn't come back, dad made me come in."
We stood and watched water gush down the hill so swift it was almost violent, as it poured into a drain.
I knelt beside him under a street lamp, our umbrellas overlapping, drops trickling into my hair, and told him it was moments like this that were the reason I wouldn't let him play Minecraft 10 hours a day. The reason he was angry with me. "Because we would miss special moments like this. And this, one day, is what you're going to remember."
We sang "Singing in the Rain", twirling our umbrellas, undeterred by the rain on our faces. When we came back home I ran a bath for him while he splashed me with cold water and started a water fight, him giggly and finally confessing that he felt better.
Later, as I tucked him into bed, our heads on pillows close together, I asked him where he was trying to go when he ran away.
"I don't know," he said. "I was just trying to think of a place to go and live. But I felt like a magnet kept pulling me back."
"I love you so much," I told him. "I would miss you if you were gone."
"That was the magnet pulling me back," he said.
"What?"
He poked his finger into my shoulder. "You."
