The Worst Feeling

I experienced one of the worst feelings you can feel as a parent for the first time on Friday night....not knowing where your child is.

 

It started out with a rough bedtime. We've been trying hard to keep the boys in their beds all night, as well as teach them to fall asleep without us in the room. Both boys kept getting out of bed and Adam and I were getting pretty angry. Ryan was afraid of something and Lucas was just being totally hyper and goofy. We were exhausted. We left their room threatening to take away their new toys if they got out of bed again.

 

Just after midnight some sort of noise woke me up. I checked the boys on the video monitor on my nightstand, as I always do when I wake up in the middle of the night. I couldn't really see Ryan in his bed, so I got up to check. He wasn't in his bed.

 

I figured he had climbed into our bed and I had been too tired to notice, so I walked back to our room to check. But he wasn't there. I was confused and starting to get worried. I went back to the boys' room and checked both boys' beds, under Ryan's bed, in the closet, behind the door......no Ryan. I raced back to our room and told Adam I couldn't find Ryan. I proceeded to search every room upstairs...the playroom, nursery, bathrooms......no Ryan.

 

Adam staggered out of bed and told me to relax, but by this point I was yelling Ryan's name and imagining the worst. Someone had come into our house and kidnapped him. Or he had suddenly developed a sleep-walking habit and wandered out of the house. I was also thinking about how my last words before he fell asleep had been angry words, instead of the usual sweet things I whisper to him at bedtime.

 

I raced downstairs just as Adam told me he had found Ryan. He had been in Lucas' bed, curled up under the covers. I had already checked Lucas' bed but Ryan is so small I didn't even see him. I grabbed him and hugged him and he told me he had woken up scared, and that's why he had climbed into Lucas' bed.

 

The whole ordeal lasted less than ten minutes, but I can' even describe the terror that I felt. I have never not known where my children are. It was the worst feeling to not be able to find Ryan.

I was sure glad to see these boys in the morning. Don't ever do that again Ryan!