Letting Go

Just been reminded by yeeyee's blog about this episode of me "letting go". Really took a lot of effort on my part so must blog it lah.
I was at Yeeyee's house trying to finish up something on her computer but my dear Caleb kept insisting that I had to play toys with him and just didn't want to let me do my stuff.
Well, Cherie had called and wanted to spend time with Caleb so Yee Yee came up with this "brilliant" suggestion. She needed to go to town to run an errand, so she suggested bringing Caleb out with her, she'll drop Caleb off at Cherie's house and then she'll come back to pick him up. That'll give me some time on my own to finish up my stuff.
I was really apprehensive coz
1)Caleb for the longest time didn't take to yeeyee very well for watever strange reason (ok, got improvement after meimei came)
2) Caleb has never been to cherie's house.
3) Cherie has only played with Caleb when I'm around and in our house

I was really hesitant but Yeeyee was going "Aiyah! You got to let go! Your son is already past one! (yah, like he's very big already. Anyway, it was easy for Yeeyee to just talk...) And she promised me that she'll be really fast, it'll only be for an hour, spore so small... I'm just a call away...Cherie doesn't stay that far away...blah blah...)
Well, in the end I relented and said ok, we'll try it out. See Caleb's reaction first. So I asked Caleb, do you want to sit in Yeeyee's car? Mummy will stay in Yeeyee's house. Surprisingly, he gave a very positive Yes! and he very enthusiastically waved goodbye to me, put on his slippers and went off with Yeeyee.
I waited to hear whether there was any crying or protests from him when he went off to the lift landing with Yeeyee but I heard none of those.
15min later, I got a sms from Yeeyee telling me that she has dropped the package off! I called her immediately and she told me that she got Cherie to wait by the main road. For whatever reason, Caleb thinks that Yeeyee needs to go to the petrol kiosk to pump petrol and will come back for him when she's done. So he happily allowed Cherie to carry him out of the car and went with her to the playground to play, without any protest.
Cherie had a friend with her (somebody whom Caleb has never met), and according to Cherie, still they had a whale of a time playing at the playground, petting doggies, and visiting Cherie's house.
Well, all in all, this Yeeyee took her own sweet time and only came back with my son after 3 hours!
I spoke with Cherie over the phone to make sure that everything's in control when Yeeyee took so long. Well, like I said, the girl is good lah and i was more settled knowing that Caleb was having fun. She even got him to come to the phone to say hello.
I think it was more of an episode for me than for Caleb. Had mixed feelings about it. I mean it's good that he's sociable and can mix well with other people. But it also means that I need to watch him to make sure that he doesn't anyhow go off with some stranger or aquaintance. I'm definitely thankful for the many offers to babysit him but I still think it would require some struggle on my part to let him go.

Me and Daddy are attending this parenting seminar and one of the points that was brought up yesterday was that we got to be wise as parents and make sure that our children are in well protected, secure environments. The facilitator actually said that his recommendation is that we should not let our children stay out without our supervision below the age of 5 coz most child abuse cases are actually caused by familiar faces. No offence Yeeyee or Cherie but it was food for thought.