high stakes hide and seek

this post involves a toddler, a new father, an unguarded spiral staircase in their new apartment, and a happy ending.

his morning like every morning since osa started daycare found me with a 1/2 hour’s sole custody after lori left for work. It’s my favorite part of a weekday – alone time with the baby girl – and a chance to prove to myself and the world (lori) that i know what i’m doing.

We’re in this new apartment which has many boo boo hazards and one granddaddy of them all – a spiral staircase whose landing is a terra cotta tile floor 10 feet below. We keep a baby gate up or the door closed to the room with stair at all times. this morning i went with the closed door.

so when i started our morning routine of washing dishes, entertaining baby, making lunch, dressing baby, hide and seek, monitoring baby i had it all under control. osa was running around like a crazy girl but that's just because she loves to be chased. it's a simple game of hide and seek barely evolved from peek a boo...until this morning.

i was washing a bottle at the back of the apartment when alexandra took off for the front of the apartment - there's but one skinny line of vision from the sink that provides the ultimate peek a boo high for her. when i went to 'peek' she was nowhere to 'a boo'. and i heard footsteps...what?

i put down the bottle brush and took off after her. but she wasn't at the front door. the bedroom door to the stair was closed (phew!) so i started to look behind boxes (we just moved) and in her room but she wasn't there. i totally panicked and then i heard giggling (seriously sounded like that old movie child's play) coming from, of course, behind the closed bedroom door with the stair in it. what a great way for her to teach me that she had learned to turn a door knob (for the first time) slip in and shut a door silently.

i took our lord's name in vain then ripped open the door as she began to take off for the stairs. luckily i caught her grabbed her and hugged her before she got there. we did the rest of the dishes and morning prep with her clutched under one arm as i worked along. the new morning routine, the new solution. i'm going to keep that little mush-mush held tight at least until she's through high school. and buy a surplus of baby gates!