seems weird how it’s written, like the father didn’t do much for a few hours after the little girl was told to go back to bed?
I assumed he went back to sleep thinking she was just sleeping…
Agree -- awful reporting. Sounds like maybe she and the children were with her parents (the kids' granparents) at a summer rental and the father had to stay home for work, so the child called her father on the phone. Either that or he was there but sleeping separately from her -- some parents do that when they fall asleep on the couch but the other goes to bed. Or -- they are separated and the family asked the reporter to word it in that strange, non-descriptive way -- "she told her father."