Amber alert

I'm not sure where she gets it, but Lex is what you would call an explorer. She is captivated by seeing new things, going new places, and meeting new people. I can already tell she is going to be one of those kids who takes apart the toaster to see how it works, and is knee deep in another project before remembering to put it back together. (sound familiar Matt?)

Shortly after learning to crawl, Lew decided it was time to explore the outside world. Here in Cali the weather is fairly predictable: blue skies, breeze off the ocean, 75 degrees. Often, due to these harsh weather conditions, I leave the door and windows open, so that we don't have the air conditioner running all day.

On one such day, as I was trying to cook dinner, I suddenly noticed that the house was far too quiet: red flag 1. Thinking nothing of it, I called Lexi's name and listened for the sounds of her shuffling away from whatever she was doing, that she wasn't supposed to be doing. Nothing happened: red flag 2.
I quickly pulled my hands out of the raw chicken and looked around the house... still no sign of David Copperfield. I looked outside the door, to cover all my bases, but told myself she wasn't near fast enough to get further than right outside the door, so no need to check around the corner: red flag 3.

I was fairly certain that in order to file a missing persons report I would have to tell the police that I did in fact leave the house to look for her, I decided to check all the hallways. Wouldn't you know, as I turned the corner, there she was just reaching the top of the stairs. As my heart stopped and I yelled her name - she thought it was a game to have mom running towards her, and broke out in grins and giggles as she started down head first. I grabbed her just as she started down, and she got a nice parting gift from the top stair as her cheek connected.

That night when David got home and I retold the story, he was pretty unsettled by the whole ordeal. He had a lot of questions about what had happened. The first as I recall being, "Do you have any idea how dangerous raw chicken can be? You washed your hands right?"