My daughter has made a name for herself or has become well known with all the teachers at her daycare. Some of you might think ‘uh oh’. She’s honestly a good child. Very smart. Always happy. All the teachers know her as ‘the little escape artist’, so I’m told and have to pay special attention to her when on the playground.

A few weeks ago when I stopped to pick her up from daycare, her teacher told me about her little escape from her part of the playground. I thought, ‘uh oh!’ The way their playgrounds are set up is a little awkward and I can totally see this happening. The entire playground is fenced in. The only way to get into the playground is through a doorway from the building (awesome idea). Each little play area is sectioned off by a fence row, to get into that section you have to go through a gate. Well, my daughter’s playground is the first playground and all the other kids have to walk through her area to get to theirs. So, she takes this opportunity to be a part of their group, squeezing herself into their line, and follows them into their play area.

After a few minutes her teacher discovers my daughter is gone and panics! She’s calling her name and of course there’s no reply. My daughter won’t come when her name is called unless you say I have pancakes or do you want a cookie. Her magic words. Her teacher happens to look over the fence at the other playground and sees my daughter playing over there. She goes over, gets her, and brings her back over to her playground.

I’m told this happens frequently! So each time a teacher is taking over for breaks they know about her little escape tricks.

On another day, the door to her daycare room wasn’t fully closed. My daughter had walked over to the door and opened it all the way. Her teacher turned her head just in time to see my daughter dashing out the door, running full speed for the front door of the daycare. Her teacher just found out how fast my little girl can run.

Yesterday I stopped by to pick her up. We were walking down the hallway to sign out and one of the teachers, I didn’t even know, says, ‘hey, there’s the little escape artist.’ I just laughed and said, ‘actually I call her Houdini at home.’