Hidden surveillance may be in order

Ok, I mentioned that things had been crazy around our house recently. Let me explain why. Both kids were sick last week with colds that required them taking medicine. We left the cold medicine out on the bathroom counter, as we were using it a couple of times each day. The kids were upstairs in the afternoon for their “rest time”, which consists of them trashing their rooms quietly getting a couple of toys out, fighting playing with each other, and coming downstairs every 5 minutes staying in their rooms to give The Wife a break. Anyway, last Thursday, about 2 hours after rest time was done, The Wife needed to go upstairs for something and noticed one of the bottles of medicine sitting on the bathroom counter completely empty with the childproof cap lying next to it. She called me and together we determined that there must have been around a third of the bottle left. I looked online at the information about the active ingredients in the medicine. There were 2 listed and both recommended calling poison control for an overdose. Great fun!

The Wife called them and talked to someone. Luckily they told her that for the amount that Bronze drank, she should be fine, with maybe some periods of either sleepiness or wakefulness. Bronze started getting real drowsy about 2 hours before bedtime, but we kept her awake til her normal bedtime, thinking that this would be better. Also, poison control said that we should wake her a couple of times during the night to make sure she was coherent. I warned Bronze, as we were getting the kids ready for bed, that I’d be waking her, so that she wouldn’t be too surprised. I woke her about an hour after bedtime, slowly rubbing her shoulder saying, “Daddy’s just checking you to make sure you’re ok. Go back to sleep now.” She rolled over, looked up at me, smiled, said “Ok”, and snuggled back under her covers. I went in 1 other time, as I was getting ready for bed. She was sleeping so peacefully I decided not to wake her. I climbed into my bed knowing all was well. Crisis averted.

Around 4am, I barely remember hearing Bronze standing next to the bed, talking to The Wife. The Wife told her to go back to sleep, and that was all I heard. Around 6am, I again hear Bronze talking to The Wife. The Wife, a little more sternly this time, says that it’s too early to get up and that Bronze should go back to sleep. As I was slipping back into sleep, I heard a sound and I said to The Wife, “It sounded like she was going down the stairs.” That was about all that registered in my brain until a little after 7 (which is the normal wake up time at our house) when Azure came into our room. The Wife and Azure headed downstairs, while I was still getting myself awake. Suddenly I hear Bronze talking to The Wife from down the stairs and Bronze starts wailing. I rush downstairs as the realization sinks in that my 3 and a half-year-old daughter has been awake for hours completely unsupervised. The girl who just the day before drank a third of a bottle of cold medicine. The girl who can’t use kid scissors unless there’s a grown up observing because she’s cut her own hair 3 different times, cut numerous different doll’s hair, and cut her parent’s very expensive duvet cover that they got for their wedding. My mind was racing, immediately thinking horrible things, recalling the conversation that The Wife and I’d had the day before about me needing to make sure to lock the cabinet under the kitchen sink, as I’d been lax about that recently. I was scared.

I get downstairs and everyone’s in the office. I see Bronze standing there, wearing her painting smock, paint all over the smock and her arms, a bunch of colored paper on the floor, the box of paints open on the table (which had been put away in the closet), a few finished paintings sitting on the desk drying (just like when we do this activity), paint on the table, paint on her mother’s shelf, and the piece de resistance, our tan fabric covered desk chair, completely painted with purple and green paint. Bronze was fine, the crying was cause she didn’t want to get in trouble for what she described as “I accidentally painted the chair.” I was so glad she wasn’t hurt. I looked around the room and saw that there wasn’t any paint on any of Becky’s scrapbooks, which are stored in the room, and breathed a sigh of relief at that. All I could do was chuckle to myself. The Wife took her into the bathroom and cleaned her up while I got some wipes and set about cleaning the office. The Wife scrubbed the chair with fabric cleaner but we now have a lovely purple and green chair. No big deal.

As it turns out, previous to her painting, Bronze had also went into the living room, turned on some lights, put in Riverdance, and sat and watched the entire 71 minute show. There was also a big pile of books in the middle of the living room floor that she’d gotten out. We figure she must have been up since the first time she came into our room around 4. We are so lucky. As The Wife pointed out, she could have just as easily opened the door and wandered outside to play or something. I guess next time when that little voice in my head is telling me that I’m hearing one of the kids going downstairs in the middle of the night, I’ll have to actually believe it instead of dismissing it as “probably one of the cats” as I remember telling myself as I fell back asleep. Wakefulness indeed.