Our little troublemaker

I really thought the “getting into everything” stuff came a little later. How wrong I was.

I’ve known for quite sometime that Sawyer was going to be a handful because he is curious enough to want to figure things out and because he is boy-tough enough to not really mind the consequences or discomfort of doing so.

What I didn’t imagine is that he’d start using up his nine lives so quickly. We’d better learn to out-think him quicker.

The first “incident”

The day after Christmas, when we had about 6 inches of snow, Ray went to the grocery store while I worked on getting Sawyer to take a nap. I can usually get him to sleep, but laying him down is nearly impossible without waking him. So I’ve been leaving him on the couch to nap. I wedge an old couch cushion between the sofa and the coffee table so he can’t roll off and let him snooze. Some days, I get 30 minutes; other days he’ll sleep more than an hour.

So this day, he was zonked and I was actually getting things accomplished in the kitchen. I’d peek into the den every 10 to 15 minutes just to make sure he wasn’t awake, but he was really out that day.

Or so I thought.

I have nothing against long naps, but this one was becoming unusually long for Sawyer and it made me a little suspicious. I wondered if maybe he was getting sick or something.

I peeked in, and I almost kept going. But I noticed that sandy blond hair just barely showing above the couch cushion, like Sawyer was sitting up.

Odd, I thought. He never just sits there and waits on me. He usually hops up, looks around to see if anyone is nearby and if not, starts wailing.

So I walked over to the couch to see what he was doing, and I was stunned.

My sweet “he’s only 12 months old, how much can he get into?” little devil had found the bag of caramel corn I left on the table behind the sofa. He was coated in sticky from head to toe. There was popcorn all over the couch, glued to the blanket and pillows, in his hair and stuck to his eyelid.










Best of all, he had a mouthful. Make that MORE than a mouthful. So much that he couldn’t chew, spit or swallow. His pants, shirt and socks were drenched, because he’d squirreled away so many kernels (and scarily giant almonds and peanuts) into his little chipmunk cheeks that the drool was in overdrive trying to help it down.

I wasn’t panicked at first because he wasn’t actively choking or even scared. So I grabbed my camera to document this rapid descent into terrible toddlerhood.

Then I swiped every piece of caramel corn out of his mouth and throat. A good Mama-sized handful.

After that, I had to strip him down for a bath, soak the clothes in detergent and scrub the caramel out of the couch.

It wasn’t until the little cherub was happily splashing in the bathtub, completely unaware of his brush with danger, that I panicked.

Holy crap, this is only the beginning.


Incident Number Two

I know all children embarrass their parents at some time or another. I never expected my sweet boy to cause me such parental shame at this age, though.

It’s not enough that before hitting 13 months old, before he can walk or talk … Sawyer has already prank dialed 911.

Now, he’s shamed Mama into calling Poison Control.

On Jan. 3, Ray went back to work after the long weekend and I was struggling to get moving. Sawyer was really cranky that morning, and I figured it was because he is getting his first molars in. His poor gums are all swollen and practically purple.

So I gave him some infants’ ibuprofen, which seemed to help greatly. In 15 minutes or so, he had stopped moaning and was back to playing with his toys. Being so wiped out, I laid down on the couch for a few minutes while he shuffled from toy box to box. He is often very content to play by himself and will check in or bring me toys if I am laying on the couch.

But the alarm bells go off if he gets too quiet. I know that he must be up to something. And luckily that happened.

I jumped up and found him sitting behind the sofa with the medicine bottle in his hand, the contents dumped in a nice gooey puddle on the floor. Thanks childproof cap!

I knew about how much was in the bottle when I gave him that dose, and I could tell from what was on the floor, that he hadn’t downed the whole thing. A lucky break because he acts like baby Advil and Tylenol taste like candy (which they kinda do).

I called my mom and asked what I should do. I KNEW that I should call Poison Control. But I was mortified that I had let my sweet baby get into a potentially dangerous substance.

But she swore they wouldn’t send the cops out to arrest me for bad mothering. So I called them.

The woman was very nice. She wrote down how big the bottle was, how much medicine was left in it, Sawyer’s age and weight and put me hold.

I felt like an idiot.

She came back on to tell me that he was in no danger. Even if he’d drank a full bottle, it wouldn’t be fatal. I remember thinking that fact was good to know but hoping I would never need to test it.

She took down my name, phone number and Sawyer’s name. I figure that’s my first mark in the bad parent black book.

Mostly, I was just happy my laziness and Sawyer’s curiosity hadn’t done any harm. For now.

Until I get smarter, maybe I need to post a big sign that says: “Keep Off: Sawyer CAN reach this table.”