A close call

Although our room is only about 20 feet down the hall from Elise's room, I still use a baby monitor so I can hear her if she needs me during the night. We keep her door open only a crack, and ours is closed completely so that when Fred's alarm goes off at 5:15 am, it doesn't wake her up. This makes it almost impossible to hear her if I don't have the monitor on.

On Sunday morning, Fred got up with Elise so that I could sleep in, and he turned off the monitor so that they wouldn't disturb me while he was getting her dressed. And last night, I forgot to turn it back on. You see where this is going, right?

I was having one of my bizarre dreams around 4:30 am, when something jolted me from my sleep. I mean, JOLTED. I jumped out of bed and told my husband, "something's wrong!" I immediately thought of Elise, but couldn't hear anything. Then I realized the monitor was still off.

"Crap-on-a-stick!" Says I (yes, that's my go-to bad word), turning on the monitor. And that''s when I hear Elise moaning and saying she wants some food. My stomach dropped.

When we checked her at midnight, she was 190, a number we thought was good enough to get her to morning. Obviously not, since she was 59. We got some food into her, and put her back to bed. About 30 minutes later, she was 105.

I don't know how long she cried for us, but it kills me that she waited any amount of time for us to come. She probably felt so scared, lying there in the dark; calling for us and nobody answered her. It hurts, but I'm glad my "Mommy-sense" was working well enough to know that something was wrong; even in the depths of a dream.

Checking to see if the baby monitor is on; just one more thing to add to the bedtime routine.