My daughter is 27 months (that’s 2 years and 3 months to those of you who must mentally calculate the whole age-by-month thing) and we recently took the long trip from Australia to Florida. Roughly 24 hours, not tons of sleep and nowhere too comfy to lay our heads. When we left Australia my daughter was sleeping in a toddler bed and the most convenient bed for us to give her in Florida was a queen size bed. Dramatic increase yet – oh the luxury of it all – I felt it’d be fine for her.
We didn’t get them in bed asleep until around midnight because of our late arrival, etc. and so the next morning around 6:30 as I was taking my pregnant self on my hourly ritual to the loo I checked on the kids. My baby boy was sleeping the day away and… my daughter was not in her bed.
Not under the pillows. Not in the closet. Not in between the wall and the bed or, from what I could see, under the bed. My grandmother’s house is 3,100 square foot (which I think is pretty big) and I started running, calling her name, and fighting off panic – and in that order. “Oh no, her first night in a big girl bed and she has climbed out and escaped.” Doors were closed, locked, everything looked undisturbed.
This frantic search carried on for some minutes until my very elderly grandmother woke up, joined the search, and I had called and recruited my mother to come over who had already arrived. Then I heard this little angelic voice. It said “ooowwww, stuck” coming out from under the bed. She had fallen between the bed and the wall and, somehow, gotten fully under the bed and was stuck. And sound asleep until we called for her. I dislodged her and then almost crushed her heretofore unharmed ribs with my hug. And this is what I learned.Â
1. My grandmother is so much calmer under pressure than I am.Â
Of course I looked under the bed and between the bed and the wall, to no avail. My grandmother (mima) just pulled up the bed skirt, called Ella Kate’s name and bham, mystery revealed. I had run all the way around the house, started sweating, and nearly called the police.
2. Looking in the pool was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.
I don’t feel the need to elaborate here. I could not imagine a moment more horrible than what I was dreading, and am so deeply grieved and saddened that so many mothers don’t have to imagine it.
3. My obsessive checking-on-the-kids-at-all-hours thing is often very disruptive to their sleep and to my own.Â
I can’t let sleeping dogs kids lie. In my check-to-make-sure-they’re-breathing forays I have woken them up with creaking doors, touched them as they rolled over and woken them up, kept myself awake for a total of hours on various evenings by tripping over furniture and waking myself up to the point where I couldn’t get back to sleep. I need to give it up and trust that God will do His job while I’m sleeping.
Update: I’m much better at this now.Â
4. Every moment with my babies is a moment to cherish.Â
Self-explanatory, mommies, self-explanatory.
Related Reads:
- What I learned when my stroller had a flat in D.C.
- What I learned when I switched to the skirt swimsuit
- What I learned on a 36 hour journey wit lots of kids and even more bags
- What I learned during transition in childbirth (the near death experience)
- What I learned in my third 3rd trimester
- What I learned when I lost my daughter under the bed
- What I learned in my second 3rd trimester
- What I learned as a work from home (and stay at home) mom
- What I learned in my third 1st trimester
- What I learned when my 1 year old let herself out of the house
- What I learned when hosting a progressive dinner with 20 kids
- What I learned when my daughter woke up the entire 2nd floor of our hotel
- What I learned getting a urine sample from an 18 month old
- What I learned when my baby ruined my bedding
- What I learned at the public pool
- What I learned at a birthday party
Nana says
I remember when you were little and we went to Disneyworld. We were at Epcot in “Spain” or some other country. We were “shopping” and you were right beside me. I looked back at the table and down again….you were gone! I almost had a stroke. Fortunately, you had only wondered around the table away from me and were trying to find your “mommy” by asking someone who didn’t speak English. Whew…that was rough on both of us!
Rachel says
Hahaha, my recollection of that event is somewhat more traumatic! :)
Ashley Rane Sparks says
That’s a nightmare!
But I love the idea of “What I learned”. I try to get to this point with my kids when things go wrong as often as I can. Sometimes they don’t want to learn from their mistakes (and neither do I) but it’s such a great lesson in life.
Thanks for inspiring me today!
Ashley Rane Sparks
http://www.makeitrane.com
Rachel says
Thank you for the encouragement, Ashley! It is very hard to learn from our mistakes because it’s hard to look at them, but oh the trouble we save ourselves, huh? Hope you had a nice weekend :)