Evan has this particular funny little way of getting my attention: “Hi…dad!”, complete with awkward pause in the middle as if he’s trying to determine if I’m actually mom or something. Some days he’ll actually beat me to the punch of getting out of bed, and I’ll wake up with him standing next to my bed, giving me blankie horse kisses. “Hi…dad!”
Oh yeah, it’s entirely possible for him to get out of bed before I do, even though it’s not really supposed to work that way. His bed has the usual security measures – safety rails and so forth – and we’ve had them on the bed in two different configurations. He defeated the first version pretty quickly. Then the rails were rearranged to what seems like a bit more no-nonsense configuration.
He was out of bed on the first night of the new, more secure setup. We couldn’t figure out how the hell he was doing it, either. I have video cameras with night vision, and I seriously thought about setting one up in a secret location at bedtime, just to see how our little Houdini was getting out of bed to play with his toys (in the dark).
Then one morning this past week, I got up before he did, and so I set about getting breakfast ready before he got up. Didn’t get too far with my preparations before I heard him stirring in there, so I went and quietly opened the door…
…just in time to see him calmly climb over the safety rails and scale down the side of his bed, like it was a freakin’ ladder. The problem with this security system is simply scale: Evan’s big for a two-year-and-one-month-old child. He’s tall, and he’s somewhat graceful, and he’s pretty muscular. (This probably doesn’t bode well for any heavy-duty discipline after the age of 10, so I’m trying to see if I can get him to be at least somewhat obedient now while I’m still bigger than he is.)
The rail isn’t a problem for him at all. It’s an extra handhold to use to get out of bed.
His expression when he turned around from getting his feet on solid ground was priceless – he was totally shocked, and looked around as if he was wondering if somebody else was on the premises who could take the blame. It’s not like I was giving him a face that said “spanking imminent” – on the contrary, I was just laughing at how easy it was for him to overcome every obstacle we tried to put in the path that leads out of his bed, safety rails or no. Finally he tentatively said – you guessed it – “Hi…dad!”
Hi…dad! Found your lightsaber! Wake up!
It’s probably time to just shrug, and give up, and remove the rails and work on getting him to just keep his little butt in bed. The coming winter months, which will give us plenty of excuses to put at least one heavy-duty blanket on his bed instead of just a sheet, might help: it’s warmer to stay in bed than it is to play around in the dark on a tile floor, and having a certain weight of blankets on top of him (and I’m tempted to add some restraining straps…) might do the trick too.
It’s either that, or getting used to little surprise utterances of “Hi…dad!” at all hours.
Hmm, this IS a pickle. If he won’t stay in his little mini-jail, perhaps a night or two in real county lockup would nip it in the bud and instill a sense of discipline. Plant a couple of ounces of weed on his person and then call the cops anonymously. Take my word for it, this is something you’ll be chuckling about twenty years from now.