Intruder! Intruder!

A sound of unknown origin startled me at 5am this morning. I nudged Scott, anxiously hoping that he would wake up and go conquer the intruder. But the prowler had already made it to our bedroom and uttered a rather loud and unexpected war cry: “Hey Daddy! Hey hey hey, Daddy!”

As a heavy-eyed Scott took Neels back to bed, I envisioned ways to keep the little man in his crib. We have already lowered his mattress to the lowest position and raised the rails to the max. But Monkey Murphy still manages to escape -mostly at inopportune times. (Does this sound familiar or bring back memories to any one out there?)

With thoughts of a chicken wire cage to compliment the crib, a ceiling-high steel frame or padded concrete canopy with a tiny door and latch, a motion-activated recording uttering threats of confiscating his beloved dog and blanket and other ingenious inventions, I dozed off again…
“It-y bit-y Pider up water pout. Down came rain, wat pider out!” it echoed through the sleepy house. SO sweet. SO unfortunate. I glanced at the clock: 5:21am. I’ve always enjoyed a serenade. This one somehow did little to make me want to flash my bedroom lights (a tradition in South African dorms to show delight and appreciation when you receive a serenade at any hour of the night.)

With my mind back in engineering-mode and all prospects of sleep lost to my “to tame a boy” thoughts, I decided to go to the gym and let Scott listen to and deal with the rest of the concert. My contribution would be to go by the hardware store on the way back. Or maybe I'll contact the zoo and see if they need extra monkeys. Now, I know for sure that I did not evolve from a monkey. I have my doubts about Neels though...