Being a Mom is Intense

Its the middle of the night.
Her scream is one of a depth and proportion that I have never heard.
My two year old daughter is screaming, loud and long and hard.
I am in the hallway, running with all that I have, but I'm spinning out as I try.
My mind is tripping over all our trips to the ER in the past -- the food allergies, the RSV, the stitches...
What has happened now? What will this trip bring us?
Did she fall off her recently lofted big-girl bed? Is an arm or leg broken?
My husband is behind me, but somehow he seems like he is in front of me and all around me,
and I don't know why I feel like I should be shoving him away... he is here to help.
I just need to get to her.
I can see, with eyes I am shocked to have in the back of my head, that his legs are sliding out from under him, he is running horizontally, despite his intense effort to control his vertical run.
I fling the door open and I see her sitting up in her bed.
At least she isn't broken.

I shout, "Jasmine, what is wrong?!"
Blake shouts louder questions and demands.

I've scooped her up and have fallen to the floor,
her legs wrapped around me, her arms my necklace.
I hold her head to mine and start my chant,
"Its ok. Its ok. Its ok."

I still am not sure.
Are we going to the ER tonight?
My body is trembling. My core is shaking.
But I hold her and tell her its ok.

That scream....
what was it for?
Shaking,
chanting,
caressing.

Baby Ruby is crying now. Why wouldn't she be?
Their rooms share a wall.
Blake is gone to help her.
And I shakily rock my first baby.

Eventually through sobs she tells me
that she... needed more water.
We didn't hear her,
so she got loud.
"Really, really loud." She explains.

I could laugh.
But I'd rather cry.
I'm not sure I've ever been that scared.
And I've been scared quite a bit since becoming a mother.
Why and how she came upon a scream that was more bone chilling than any horror movie has captured I don't know. I guess the poor kid was thirsty. (She hasn't woken up at night in ages!)

We brought her in our bed.

I mean,
I still hadn't found a baby monitor for her room that wouldn't interfere with the room right next door's baby monitor. I couldn't put her back to bed and sleep after that.
We live in a tiny place. Like 700 square feet. But the return air vent is directly in front of our door, and its very loud. You can't hear over it when it's on. Which apparently is exactly when Jasmine got thirsty.

Of course she is fine and dandy now.
But my heart is pounding.
I'm not sure my adrenaline will ever stop pumping after that.

I don't remember anything before I was the the hallway and I was running towards the scariest sound I know. My child screaming.
I don't remember getting out of bed. I don't remember Blake getting up.
I must have woke up mid run.

We are all in bed now.
My heart is racing.
I'd like to have a good cry to let these terrors go, but I can't.
My daughter is playing with my hair, my fingers, my back.
Of course I won't be sleeping until she does.

As soon as we are asleep,
Ruby needs me.
And then again later.
And each time I wake up, I realize I am not over it.

Poor me...no sleep and now, Blake has to go to work.

I spend my morning hunting down a baby monitor, because now its more than a want. Its a I'm-never-sleeping-again-without-having-one-in-each-room must.

I wasn't a patient mommy.
I wasn't a patient wife. (I called Blake like 74 times about ebay auctions on monitors.)

Eventually I settle on a craigslist, older video monitor. The MHz is so different from a just-plain-radio monitor that it should work.

Thankfully we can get it that afternoon.

Thankfully that is the first and cheapest video baby monitor I've come across on craigslist in ages.
Just when we learned we'd need it.
I keep thanking God.

So... you may have seen me ask on Facebook how to get two baby monitors to work on my small house.
Well this is the crazy story of  how I ended up figuring it out.


Use one radio, one video. They are set to very different MHz.

(There may be other ways, but this is the best I've come up with. Especially for the least amount of cash! I wasn't excited about spending $200+ on something fancy.)

When Blake got home (and I had a nap) we talked about the whole thing.

Apparently I was so out of it at the time, I didn't even realize that a particularly hilarious part of this terrifying ordeal ever occurred.
Blake started telling me about how he was dreaming when Jasmine started screaming, so his response was to reply {to his dream} with an epic movie war cry as he ran towards her.
YEP.
That's why to me, in that moment, he seemed like he was in front of me and all around me as I ran through the hallway. And that explains {greatly} why I felt like I wanted to shove him in that moment.
Now that he mentions it, I can remember that.
It just was so secondary at that moment, and I was still so sleepy, I didn't retain it.
It was a war cry.
No wonder the baby woke up!

Blake tells me he was afraid the neighbors were going to call the cops on us.
(We live in a duplex. They had to have heard some of this!)

From that point on in our talk, I can't stop laughing.
Jasmine starts fake laughing with me. So I laugh some more, and so does she.

And every time I think of it now I can barely talk about it through my laughter.

But even though its funny,
It was horrible.

I have a serious, dark, creepy, bruise (I found the next day) on my left hip the size of a grapefruit - and a similar one on my right arm. I can only assume it is from sleep-running past the very tight squeeze between my footboard and dresser. It's not fun pulling my pants up and down.
My back and neck still hurt (3 days later) just as bad as when I had real, actual, whip lash from a car crash. I don't know what that is from -- but wow,
being a mom is intense.

Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder at it all.
If this is the small stuff then....