scary moment at midnight

[meesch34]

As you may remember from a previous post, we are trying to completely wean Erin from the bottle. In the last 7-10 days she's only had 1 bottle before going to bed. I think we've pretty much eliminated that bottle! Last week (Mon-Fri) she also slept through the night with no problem. I started thinking, hey this is pretty easy. Silly mommy! Saturday night was a rough night for all in the Haynie household. Erin (who we now know was coming down with a nasty little cold) woke up pretty much every hour and was up to play from 3:30-5 Sunday morning. Needless to say when she took her afternoon nap on Sunday, we all took a nap. Sunday night was a little better, but there was still an hour (4:30-5:30) when she was up to play. Not too bad, we still had a better night's sleep than Saturday and I was able to function on Monday. What is it about being sick, the time when you need to sleep the most, that you can't sleep well at all (without the help of Nyquil or some other drug)? Well, last night was no exception. Erin has developed a cough which of course doesn't help the sleep process. Around midnight we heard her fussing. We play this little game where we lay in bed for 10-15 minutes to see if she's serious or just making a little noise. Last night she was serious. So, John went out to the kitchen to make a bottle and I headed to the bathroom before going to pick her up. While in the bathroom, I hear a thud and my heart sinks. I ask John if he made the noise, hoping against hope that he dropped something in the kitchen. He says no and heads to Erin's bedroom, assuring me that she fell down in her crib (which happens sometimes at night). He opens her door and says, nope she's out of her crib. I panicked! I imagine a crumpled lifeless body, a bloody mess, all those horrible things that you worry about as a parent. Sanity prevailed as I realized (a) she's still crying, thus she's able to breath and (b) she's not screaming bloody murder like every bone in her body is broken. She's crying her "I fell down and I'm scared" mixed with a little "I've been fussing, why is nobody coming to get me?" cry. It turns out that she met John at the bedroom door, so she obviously had full use of her limbs as well. No sign of bleeding, no obvious sign of concussion or head trauma, not even a bump or bruise. We gave her the bottle and she seemed fine; normal Erin that has a head cold. We set her back down and she slept the rest of the night, with mommy checking on her when I got up to go to the bathroom (which happens every 2 hours, lovely pregnancy side effect). This morning she was grinning, happy, laughing Erin. We survived her first fall out of the crib. Tonight we're changing the setting so it's a little harder to get out of. John and I decided that she was somehow able to climb out of the crib and the thud was either her landing on her butt (not her head) as she dropped or the sound of her running into a piece of furniture in her darkened room. It makes us happier this way :) She is getting much better at climbing on and off the couch and her little fisher price chair so it's feasible!

In other Haynie household news, I've started the lovely process of applying for jobs again. I'm mailing an application for a molecular biologist position at the Smithsonian this morning. There is a job in Georgia (just outside Atlanta) that I'll be applying for (a forensic examiner position) and a job in Laramie, Wyoming (performing animal disease research). I've had no luck finding jobs in Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas so far. Although, I'll probably apply for a forensics position available in Tulsa. Looking for jobs sucks my will to live! Applying for them isn't much better. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I find something decent soon.