Vaseline, phantoms, roars & early talking...

So I've been waking up to some pretty peculiar things lately. Samuel has been taking more advantage of his ability to get out of his bed and venture around in and out of his room. He used to just knock on his door when he was awake and wanted to come out. If I didn't respond he'd go back to bed. It's been going on like this for quite some time but I think this last weeks incidents have shown me that I think I might need to figure out a better way to keep him in his room after he wakes up.

Incident 1:

After putting Sam to bed one evening I went downstairs and was washing the dishes. Ryan was not home yet. I thought I heard a weird noise and so I turned the faucet off and stood there listening for the odd noise again....ROOOOOAR! I jumped so much I was shaking slightly when my brain finally connected the noise to it's origin.

SAM! He'd snuck almost completely down the stairs and, to get my attention, (because he knows he's not supposed to leave his room) he was periodically roaring. First, I laughed, I don't think he was trying to scare me but he still thought it was really funny. Then I put him back to bed hoping he didn't connect all the elements for a great scare.

Incident 2:

I had just finished feeding Russell his middle of the night feeding around 3 AM. As I returned to bed, all was quiet. I was just drifting off into dream land again when I heard a slight shuffle of the comforter on the side my bed. I opened my eyes and muffled a squeak of fright as I tried to groggily register what the small shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed was. Samuel. I don't know how long he was standing there before he made that noise. This happened every couple of nights after Russell was born. He would never say anything, just stand there waiting for me to notice. I think I've had enough phantom wakings.

Incident 3:

I was trying to take a nap last Saturday afternoon. (Trying to take advantage of Ryan being home) Sammy was supposed to be taking his nap also. Of course, because I was trying to nap and I couldn't find my ear plugs, he was just playing around in his room, making a lot of noise. Things finally quieted down and I had drifted off to sleep when I woke to a loud knocking. I looked at the clock, only 10 minutes of sleep! Ahhhh! So I laid there waiting for Ryan to respond to Samuel's excessive knocking. Ryan didn't have the opportunity because the next thing I knew Samuel had entered my room and was standing by my bed whining at me to help him with something. I turned to look at him and I think he was trying to get his pants on because they were down around his ankles but that's not really what I was trying to figure out. Something seemed odd about his face...

It wasn't until I got him to show me where and what he put on his face that I knew what it was. Vaseline! A whole tube of it! I was extremely lucky I didn't find it anywhere but on him. He said he thought it was lotion. He's been kind of greasy for the past day or so.

Incident 4:

I got home last night from my good friend's baby shower. It was about 11 pm and Ryan told me to check out what was at the top of the stairs. I found a blanket laid out, a collection of socks, some blocks and a motorcycle. Sammy had snuck out of his room and made a little bed at the top of the stairs. Ryan hadn't even heard him. He just found him there asleep around 10:30 pm.

Sam just likes to be a part of everything but knows he's supposed to be sleeping. So, that's what he decided to do. I wonder about the socks though...a collection of socks?

Incident 5:

I woke up this morning to Samuel talking. This is not an unusual occurrence. I glanced at the clock and realized it was a little later than our normal wake up time. Yea! I got to sleep in a bit! So, I was getting up when I heard talking again. Except, it wasn't coming from Samuel's room... It was coming from...the baby monitor? How in the world? Then, it clicked... I can hear Sam talking in the baby monitor... Sam's in Russell's room...waking him up and who knows what else! Gee, I ran really quickly down those stairs, not really noticing until later that Sam had turned on every single light in the house on his way down to see Russell. But Sam was just talking to Russell and when I joined them Russell was just staring up at Sam from his bed, smiling like crazy! Then Sam turned to me and said "Russell's awake Mommy." Ya, he's awake I said, and so am I, wide awake.