Poor Leah…

Tonight, while Anna and I were watching a show, our six-year-old daughter, Leah, came downstairs, obviously slightly distressed. Anna asked her what was up; Leah responded that she had to go to the bathroom—a rather cryptic statement, since there is a perfectly good bathroom, perhaps ten steps from her room, which she uses all the time. Still, we told her that that was fine and encouraged her to use the downstairs bathroom and get back to bed.

For whatever reason, Leah then proceeded to enter the kitchen—which, for those who have never been in our kitchen, does indeed feature running water, but does not particularly qualify as a bathroom. We asked her why she was going in there, but she didn’t answer, which of course led us to ask her again. This continued for about thirty seconds.

When she finally came back out of the kitchen, Leah again looked slightly confused. And again, we told her to go to the bathroom and head to bead. Her response: to walk right back into the kitchen, where she proceeded to get a paper towel.

When Leah finally emerged from the kitchen, the second time, I tried to snap her out of her apparent somnambulism by having her give me a hug. She did so, but not before accidentally kneeling on Anna’s legs and hurting her, in the process. Leah then gave me the paper towel, for no apparent reason, and with a little prompting, finally made it to the bathroom.

After going to the bathroom, Leah then came back to give us each another hug. We told her to go back to bed, cautioning her to go to her own room, not her sister, Naomi’s, nor her brother, David’s. She walked up the stairs and, less than a minute later, we were relieved to hear her door close. However, when we came upstairs, about ten minutes ago, we found Naomi’s door hanging wide open. While Leah was certainly not in there, we have little question about who did it.

Poor kid.