One Eye Open

It's amazing the things that take place when we sleep.  Coyotes prowl the streets.  Gnomes build shoes.  Even Santa and his present delivery system only happen after the last blink of the night transports us to sleep.  Well, we're in a stage now where the cats throwing up in inconvenient traffic areas aren't our only concern in the dark of the night.  The other (tecnical) morning I woke up around 2:30 and saw the oddest shadow on our bedroom wall.  It looked eerily like a giant head bobbing back and forth.  I rubbed my eyes for a few seconds but it's persistence assured me I wasn't asleep.  I got out of bed and moved toward it, trying to figure out what it was and where it was coming from.  Then I heard a whisper of "hi Daddy," and turned to find Genevieve under my computer desk, the blue glow of router light framing her darkened face.  Some how she'd gotten out of bed, out of her room, across the living room and into our room (not to mention inexplicably under my desk) with out any detection at all.  Of course her justification was needing to go to the potty so we did that and went right back to bed, but this isn't a lone incident.  Saturday night it happened twice - once again with Genevieve and the second time she brought her sister for back up.  Genevieve certainly seems to be the leader of these excursions, and 9 times out of 10 she goes potty when she's caught.  I'm happy she's able to realize she needs to go in the middle of the night,  and takes action to go to the bathroom - but I wish she'd call for me to come get her rather then roam the house on her own.  It's not like we live in a butcher shop or a mad scientists laboratory where she's going to find all forms of harm to befall her, but knowing that I might not know what takes place deeply concerns me.  We have a big door leading to the courtyard where there's a pool.  The door doesn't have a lock from the inside - it's one of those where if you open from the inside it automatically unlocks -  and even though the girls know they're not to go out that door, what's to keep her from exploring if Momma and Daddy are sound asleep with the rest of the world.  I had installed a deadbolt on the door to prevent this, but my father-in-law failed to remove the bolt when opening the door and somehow put enough force in to rip the screws from the wall. ... so that kind of toasted that idea (although a replacement is going in right away).  When they were babies I used to wake up in the dark and creep in to their room to put my hand in front of their mouths to makes sure they were still breathing. ... it's like that fear all over again.  I feel like the old tycoon who keeps his gold in a safe that he has to go to every hour to open and reassure the glowing valuables are still safely there.  Only now it's with a video monitor and a microphone.  So for now I'm sleeping on egg shells.  Waking up with every noise.  Having dreams about them finding all kinds of shenanigans in the dark.  Just waiting for a crash or a smash or just  a fire alarm to go off.  Oh the joys of parenthood. ... really it's just 18 years of non-stop freaking out.