The Tale of Zachary Willowbrook: A Leap Day Paradox

Chapter 27: Three Going on Two

Around the time that Audrey was trying to cope with the new house, Stacy noticed Zachary's increase in awareness and curiosity. He started to climb on things and get into everything. If there was something that Zachary was curious about, he would explore it without hesitation. This included opening drawers, cabinet doors, opening containers and sticking his hand in the toilet, to name a few. All of this was a shock to Stacy, as he has always sat still before.

Because of this, some other issues have arose. During his naps and bedtime, Stacy would set him in his crib. But Zachary has figured out how to climb out of it. To address this issue, Stacy and David installed some childproof safety gates at all the staircases and at the entrance of his room and installed a video monitoring system so that they would know when he is leaving his bed. All electrical outlets that were within his level were covered with outlet covers. Every cabinet door and drawer within Zachary's level was latched shut with a childproof latch.

Since installing the monitoring system, Zachary has been caught sneaking out of his crib. When Stacy entered his room, Zachary ran back to his crib and climbed back inside it, using a pile of stuffed animals and the nearby toy box to boost him up. Stacy took Zachary's "pile" and moved it back to the toy box, sighing.

"What am I going to do with you, Zacky?" she said with a frustrated sigh.

During some of the weekends in the summer, Audrey started babysitting Zachary and Timothy on certain nights that her parents go out. Stacy would lay out the pajamas that she wanted him to wear that night.

Audrey usually entertained everyone with a movie that they all watched in the play room on the second story. After the movie, Audrey would get Zachary ready for bed. Changing and clothing him wasn't too bad. The hardest part was getting Zachary into his crib. Zachary knew how to climb into it, but he refused to climb it, even with Audrey's help. To fix this problem, Audrey made Zachary's nighttime bottles and placed them in the crib. Audrey then had Zachary stand on his toy box and then helped him in. She then kissed him on the cheek and said "good night, Zachary".

Timothy was next. All she had to do is make sure that he was brushing his teeth and getting into his pajamas. To encourage him, she got ready for bed with him. After she saw that he was lying on his bed, she went into her bedroom, climbed into her bed and fell asleep.

In July, the Willowbrook family went on a family vacation. They went to Miami, their usual vacation destination of choice.

Over the summer, Emma spent the night at the house a few times. Timothy also did this with a couple friends that he made at school.

In August, the Willowbrook family celebrated Timothy's seventh birthday. The meal, along with cake and ice cream was eaten in the dining room. The presents were opened upstairs in the kids play room. Timothy invited three of his friends for a sleepover and they all had a lot of fun.

Towards the end of August, the Willowbrook children were ready for school again. Audrey was longing to go back to school. While she has somewhat gotten used to her new home, she wanted to go back. By somewhat, this meant she pretty much could tolerate it in a manner very much similar to her mother.

For this school year, Audrey ended up with Mr. Harris. This would be her last teacher at Nimbleburg Elementary. Next year, she would be attending multiple classrooms at Nimbleburg Middle School. Timothy ended up with Mr. Murphy, a different teacher than what Audrey had for second grade.

After Stacy dropped off the kids, she did the normal morning routine with Zachary. She changed his diaper, fed him breakfast, gave him a shower, cleaned him up and took him over to Gina's house for his morning play date.

With Jordan now in preschool, Zachary still had two play dates. Donna, who was now 33 months old and Tina, who was now 24 months old.

When Stacy arrived, both Donna and Tina ran to the door. Donna placed her hands to her side. Tina did the same, since she copied pretty much everything her older sister did.