Baby Fly Paper

Every Mother has her own personal yardstick with which she uses to measure her success as a parent. It might be how her child interacts with other children on the playground, how she stacks up to other parents in terms of her disciplinary techniques, comments teachers make about her children, etc.

My yardstick is relatively short and simple:

Alive = good

Dead = bad

At this juncture of my life my only concern is that I put two living, breathing children to bed every night and that two living, breathing children wake up every morning.

This actually sounds much easier than it is.

Especially if your child was born with an overwhelming obsession with butcher knives and the inherent desire to repel anything and everything that will stand still long enough for her to climb on it.

Last night I had just stepped out of the shower and heard Nick in the bedroom preparing his usual mating ritual. You know, shameless begging.

I was just starting to work on my defense strategy of telling him that I think I have an STD when I heard a door slam and a ruckus in the nursery. This could only mean one of two things:

1. There's a kidnapper who is going to kill us in the house
2. There's a kidnapper who is going to kill us in the house

My mind always immediately jumps to the most terrifying and most improbable scenario. Like a few years ago when we had that earthquake and I thought my bed was possessed. Nick had already left for work (yes, it was 4:30am) and the bed started shaking. I immediately called Nick who was still on his way to work:

Me (outside on the deck, crouching behind the bar-b-que grill with spatula in my hand): Umm, either we just had an earthquake or our bed is possessed.
Nick: Ummm, I didn't feel anyth...
Me: Fucking shit! Our bed is possessed!!!

I spent the next three hours sitting Indian-style on the couch surrounded by bibles and crosses and commanding the demon to exit. And no, it didn't occur to me to turn on the TV or radio. When it was finally time to get ready for work I was terrified to take a shower and I kept peeking around the curtain because I was sure that little girl from The Exorcist was going to be sitting on our toilet taking a dump.

By the time I got to work I was completely strung out and I was thinking of ways to tell my boss that I would need to take some time off because I had to take care of the mattress demon possession situation. When I walked in and heard people talking about an earthquake I was so fucking relieved and exhausted I had to fake sick to go home and finish washing the shampoo out of my hair because I had been too scared to complete my shower.

Anyhoo, I was certain there was a kidnapper in our midst so I yelled to Nick to grab the weapon.

The weapon being a curtain rod we keep under the bed, of course.

I swung open the door, and to my surprise, there was Ellie, pushing her clothes hamper around the nursery.

1. She cheated death by not breaking her neck when scaling out of the crib
2. She cheated death by not falling down 17 stairs
3. She cheated death because she chose to push the laundry hamper around vs. drinking the bottle of baby Benadryl sitting on the dresser.

What I'm saying is she cheated death.

My relief quickly turned to panic when I realized I didn't know what the HELL I was going to do now. She's can't be trusted to go to sleep without forced confinement. How am I going to get my six hour break every afternoon if she's all up in my mix?

So we came up with this solution:

Yes, that is duct tape. It sort of works on the same premise as fly paper.

So far so good.


CarrieS. said...

Good idea. You just gave me a very inexpensive solution to my "sleep walking" problem. Thanks Hannah!

Kari said...

Crib tent! Slightly more humane than duct tape - slightly.

beth said...

She could take care of that full body wax she's been needing if she gets stuck in the duck tape!

Kitty said...

Add a baby gate in the doorway of her room just in case she does get out in the middle of the night, and you're good to go!

Caitlin said...

I love the pillows on the floor- just in case. :) Btw- I love your blog- cracks me up!