Complacency (noun) \kəm-ˈplā-sən(t)-sē\
1: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies
2: an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction

I'm going to blame the move. We had begun to raise our two boys in a modest house in the center of a busy city. We had traffic just steps from our front door going 50mph except at rush hour when it would drag to a crawl. We had a monstorously hot back yard. The neighbors had a hole in their roof that had allowed birds to nest for four years in their attic with the birds perched feet from our babies' window. Shoot, we probably even had lead paint in places. But, here's the deal. We "started our family" in that home. We added baby gates when we saw we needed them. We painted and padded and scrubbed. No baby was going to be injured in our home. None.

Then we moved. That we moved far, into the burb-ous neighborhood we now occupy, that it's one of the safest communities in the country, that we're at the end of a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood that hardly anyone knows about doesn't count a lick. Not when your beautiful, large, open-floor-plan, home is occupied by miscreant preschoolers.

Let's draw back down again for a minute. When we moved in here, we knew there were hazards. The building code in 1979 allowed for handrails on balconies to be however you want. I could fit my head through some of those bars. We used an obscene amount of super yard panels to tighten up that security, even adding a second height to prevent access to a ceiling fan inches from that railing. We locked down rooms storing hazardous stacks of boxes. We put a lock on the kitchen cabinet. Our kids were growing fast. We thought we'd insulated them enough.

Wrong.

Last night, we learned different. It turned out just fine. Not a bit of screaming, no pain, only terror.

Our bedroom is the ultimate in open floor plans. This massive bedroom is open to the double vanity and tub and a dramatic wall and beam hide a shower, toilet and a walk-through closet. We have a TV in the room, the only one not in the basement or guest room. It is frequently used to entertain the boys in transition from one activity to the next. It's hard to tell why they were in there yesterday. Maybe because they could watch some On-Demand things that aren't available on Tivo. Whatever, it was, Duncan, our nearly-4-year-old, was in there unsupervised. Earlier in the week he had destroyed some of my wife's trinkets she keeps in a jewelry box. This was a whole new scale.

Let's go back, again. Let's also blame Movember. That's what caused me to start looking into a proper shave. When I started looking into double-edged razors, I made sure that the blade storage was safe. There's usually a few things that make them nearly impossible to remove when you're an adult who knows how to get to them and the disposal is foolproof. However, when I started using Wilkinson Sword because they gave me a better shave and I could find a 10-pack for a buck at Walmart all over the country, I neglected to think about the safety as much.

These blades are still very difficult to remove. They're covered by a wax paper envelope that keeps them from cutting your fingers getting the blades out. That's happened to me a few times. But this paper makes the standard locking mechanism unavailable to this brand.

Back to the recent past. Last night, I get up to our bedroom and start to get myself put away for the night. On my sink counter are five empty razor blade wrappers. H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T! We looked all over for the blades. One was still wrapped on the floor. That showed that these weren't just empty wrappers that he'd found. No, he had gotten them out of their little wrappers like deadly little steel candies. We looked and looked and looked and couldn't find the blades. I went to the boys' room to make sure they were breathing, fully expecting one to have blood running down his cheek or bloated from internal bleeding. I expected cuts on hands, at the very least.

When I got back to the scene, I noticed that there were unwrapped blades in the "new blade" part of the container. There was at least one blade put in the discard area that hadn't been completely inserted. So it seems that all of the blades were accounted for. I took them all and inserted them into the discard section and tossed them in the trash for complete removal from the house.

Putting this all back together, it seems that Duncan got bored and started playing with stuff on counters. He grabbed this thing and played with it. He managed to pull one of these wrapped blades out, looked at it and opened it. Disappointed in what he found, he put it back. At just 47 months, this is something I would expect massive cuts from. Not only did he do it once, he repeated it four more times. He left the wrappers in a pile on my sink and went about his business. When I asked him about it this morning, he said "Yes. I did it. I'm sorry, Daddy."

And that's why our house is in full lock down. We never had to lock down out bathroom in the old house. The boys couldn't get to these things because we had no storage in the only bathroom in the house. Neither boy could open doors. Potty training was a pipe dream. So many other things got our focus in the move that we thought we had it all covered for kids our boys' ages.

We've now faced the facts. We are so very lucky. We need to tighten up our hazard security and pay constant attention. I never want the feeling I had last night to return. "Holy S-H-I-T. I just killed my kid by being complacent." How could I ever live with myself.

And then there's the follow-up. How is it possible for my 4 year old to have such incredible hand-eye coordination? That's unreal and I think I need to thank God every day that he had that and managed to keep himself safe when I was completely out in left field. To us this was a major, life-changing event. To him, it was a day, just like any other. Huzzah to that.

YIKES!

Damn scary no doubt, Holmes. Glad all is well.

Toddlers are surprisingly dexterous.

Wow. Scary. A reminder that things can change in an instant.

And yet another good argument for beards.