Don't Lego Of That . . . .

(not Barritt's actual X-ray)

Monday, 12:50 a.m. The cry of distress comes out of Barritt's room. Not one that we are unaccustomed to. Every few days there are night terrors of the mild variety, usually about something mildly scary like spiders or dinosaurs or non-orange cheese. And the descriptions of said dreams are typically difficult to piece together, for they are made in the semi-conscious incoherence of a four year old falling back to sleep.

But last night Barritt was wide awake and sitting up in his bed.

Dad, walking in the room: "B, what is it?"
B: "Dad, I think I swallowed some Legos."
Dad: "What?"
B: "I think I swallowed some Legos. But don't worry, they were only the little ones with one dot."
Dad: "How many?"
B: "Two, I think."
Dad: "How did it happen?"
B: "Wellllll, I was just sitting here, biting on the Legos, trying to get them apart, and I just swallowed them."
Dad: "We've told you not to bite on the Legos."
B: "But Mom is asleep and she has the fingernails."
Dad: "Are you sure this wasn't a dream?"
B: "No, this was about two minutes ago. Maybe three."
Dad: "Are you sure they were just the little ones?"
B: "Yep."
Dad: "Go back to sleep. I think you are going to be OK."

As I went back to bed, the true scary thoughts started to rise up within me. No, I was not concerned about some kind of GI distress inside of Barritt. After all, there are probably 10,000 Legos swallowed in the United States every day, and anyway, we have at least 3 family members who could help deal with that.

The real scary thought was: what the hell is he doing playing with Legos at 12:45 a.m.? After all, he was asleep when we went to bed at 10 p.m. What is he making? How integral to his invention were those two (at least) tiny one-dot pieces he swallowed? Does he do this every night? What will he make tomorrow night?

We might need to start locking the bedroom door at night.