Rude Awakening

I woke up at about 5:00 this morning to Nate yelling and running through the house. He couldn't find Sophie. The door to her room was open but she wasn't in there. Can you say terrifying? We found her pretty quickly though - she was sleeping on the floor on my side of the bed, which is kind of behind the door to our room so sort of hidden from his view. She was totally asleep and the yelling definitely startled her (and woke up Clara). Apparently, she had a bad dream and came in to our room at some point in the middle of the night. She got those extra pillows from Nate's side of the bed, lugged her blanket from her room and put herself back to sleep. All without Nate and I hearing one peep.

The selfish part of me - you know, that part of me that is so over middle of the night wakings and really likes my sleep - was pleased. She didn't wake me up! Yeah! More sleep! And also, I was oddly proud of her. She had a problem, thought up a solution and implemented it all by herself. She is growing up and doesn't need us for everything anymore.

The protective part of me was completely. freaked. out. Even though you KNOW that there is a logical explanation and the chances of something bad happening are so incredibly slim, your heart still STOPS and the seconds seem like hours when your child is missing.

And the wussy mom part of my was sad. I just kept picturing her awake and scared in the middle of the night. She was clearly up for a while since it took a fair amount of work to create her own little bed. It just breaks my heart a bit to picture her scared and alone, even though we were right there. I'm not sure why she didn't wake us up but that is kind of in character for her - it took her months after she moved to a big girl bed to realize that she could come in our room. She would just stand in the hall and yell for us.

Whatever her thought process, I'm just a wee bit happy that she hadn't escaped out the front door. Or worse.