Woke Up. Fell Out of Bed.

R and I were trying to fall asleep last night while Oliver was babbling and attempting to stand up against her side. He's crawling now and pulling himself to a stand constantly, so this is what he does sometimes. Usually, he runs out of gas, and the manic crawling and standing turn to resting his head on the bed, and suddenly he's dozing away blissfully.

Apparently, both R and I fell asleep before Oliver did. The last thing I remember was him standing up against her leg or her hip, and then I was asleep.

"Oliver? OH MY GOD WHERE IS HE?"

Let me add for non-parents that, once your baby reaches mobility, the most frightening feeling in the world is losing sight of the baby. It means he's gotten into the power cords, or that pile of receipts you meant to shred, or your water glass you left on the floor. Or maybe he's decided to stand up using the rocking chair for support, and he's about to topple over. It almost always means trouble.

I woke up like a shot. Both of us looked instinctly to the foot of the bed. And then down. And there he was, sitting on a pillow, smiling up at both of us with his merry prankster grin.

We have a cosleeper which runs along R's side of the bed. It almost covers the entire side of the bed, but there's a small gap near the foot of the bed. Oliver apparently crawled down to the gap and fell over onto a conveniently-placed pillow. Thank God. TG we had the pillow there. TG the mattress and boxspring sit on the floor. TG he landed safely, and not on his head, and that he didn't decide to climb straight down the foot of the bed and fall onto the unbuffered floor.

And TG that R woke up when she did. He could have concievably crawled around the entire floor of our completely un-childproofed bedroom. The list of horrors is endless: the metal slats on the bottom of his crib, the light bulbs in the closet, cords, cell phones attached to cords, laundry he could choke himself on, magazines from which to chew pages.

We got lucky. I may never forget looking down, my heart pounding, and seeing his smiling delighted face. As far as he was concerned, he just had another little adventure.