Bad Mom Moment!

Hannah basically hates her play area. We have half the room sectioned off, but she still spends the entire time she is in there, planning and trying to execute her jail break. (And screaming too -- she does a lot of that as well.) She'll work on the end (nearest the wall) and push and shove until she can get the toy basket away from the wall. Then, she'll make a break for it. If she hears you on her tail, she starts crawling or walking faster. She wants nothing to do with playing in there.

The kids have learned to let us know if Hannah has gotten out. They will yell, "Hannah alert! Hannah alert!" (Or in Abigail's case it is more like, "Hannah awurt!" This means we should come running because a jail break has occurred. 

We keep changing the way we have the gate set-up to try and outsmart her. It will work for a few days and then she'll get wise on it and figure out how break out again, and we have to go back to the drawing board.

I wish I didn't have to keep her in there. But because we have no furniture, I have no bookshelves to hide cords behind. I have no drawers to put items safely out of reach. There are just wayyyy too many hazards. We do let her out, but only if an adult is walking around with her 1-on-1 without interruption.

The only time that she is okay with being in her play area is if someone is in there with her.

Which brings me to my "Bad Mom Moment."

JB was doing some work on the computer which is on the other side of the room. He had his headphones on so he couldn't hear anything. I decided to lay on the floor with Hannah. I put my head on that beanbag at the top right of the photo and just let her crawl all over me while trying to get any rest I could. The three older kids were playing legos upstairs peacefully. I thought maybe I could manage a little rest.

This went on for about an hour. Hannah climbed on my head, pulled my hair, ate my stomach, tried to eat my feet ... you know, typical baby stuff.

At some point, she quit harassing me and went to play with the toys in the basket.

The next thing I knew, JB was yelling, "Wendi!"

I jumped up. I instantly turned to find Hannah. 

Yep. You guessed it. She had made a jail break. I must have fallen asleep (or she was uber quiet) because I never saw or heard anything.

But the story gets worse. Hannah -- our little ten month old Hannah -- was three-fourths of the way up the stairs to the second floor.

By the time I realized what was going on, JB had already grabbed her and was coming back down the stairs with her in his arms. He handed her to me and tried to look mad, but mostly, he was trying to figure out himself how she managed to pry the toy box away from the wall and get up a flight of stairs before either of her in-the-room parents had any idea what had happened.

This folks, is why we pray for our children.