Scared To Death

Maddux is really testing our limits as parents. Or our sanity. Or both. Tonight she gave yet us another gut check to add to our already long-enough list.

Lehr and I brought the kids home from the wedding rehearsal as soon as we were done so they could get to bed at a decent time. They were exhausted, so they both went down without a fight. Lehr and I stayed upstairs and chatted with Grandma Pat and Skip for over an hour before Grandma Cathie and Grandpa Jim came home. Then we stayed up for another hour. Sometime in that last hour, Maddux woke up. She climbed out of her pack-n-play (something I knew she could physically do, but she hadn't ever done) and left her bedroom. She went into Eli's room, but was unsuccessful in rousing him. So she went into the main TV room and entertained herself. We didn't know until Lehr walked downstairs for bed and found her on the floor, stacking DVDs, out of the cases. We later found pieces of our gum, unwrapped but unchewed, clothes, books, and some coasters in random places. The scary part (outside of her potentially burning herself on the space heater or fireplace or choking on the gum) was that there was an exterior door downstairs. She knows how to open it as long as the latch is open. And it was open. Needless to say, that latch will be in place every moment of the rest of our trip.