The Day My Baby Went Missing From Her Crib

I sat up and groggily rubbed my eyes, then reached for my phone to check the time. Wow!  I'd slept really late!

And yet, I wasn't all that surprised.  My kids are all great sleepers, and considering the fact that we'd all been a little under the weather, I had gone to bed the night before assuming we would all sleep in.

I sat propped up in the bed trying to get myself completely awake, and after a couple minutes I heard the kids beginning to stir.  I knew they'd all be up soon.

The first sleepy-eyed child came tiptoeing into my room soon after, and I was looking forward to a couple minutes of snuggling before we began the day.

But he seemed timid about climbing into the bed.  “What's the matter?”  I asked.

“Is the baby sleeping your bed?” he questioned in reply.

“No…” I answered, somewhat puzzled.

“Well, where is she?  She's not in her crib.” He had a confused look on his face.

“Of course she is.  She was in our bed, but Daddy moved her to her crib when he left for work.”

“No!” he shook his head emphatically.  “It's just her blanket in there.”

“Well she must be under it,” I answered, knowing there had to be some logical explanation as to where she was.

“There's no way!  It's just wadded up small in the corner of the crib!”

Confused, I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, pulled on my bathrobe, and made my way to the girls' room.

EMPTY.  Her crib was most definitely empty.

Still half-asleep, I was trying to make some sense of where she could be.

She doesn't know how to climb out.

The “k” word briefly crossed my mind, but that didn't really make any sense.  There's absolutely zero possibility that family or friends would take her, and it didn't seem likely that a random stranger would break into the house, pick up my baby out of her crib, and then LOCK THE DOOR back when they left (yes, I had checked by this time to see if anything looked fishy about the door.)

BUT WHERE WAS SHE???

I went around and checked in the beds of all the kids who were still sleeping.

I checked every nook and cranny of the house.

I checked the beds again.

I checked the nooks and crannies again.

While I was checking, I knew that the only reasonable explanation was that my husband had taken her to work.  But taking your toddler to work isn't exactly standard procedure, and he certainly hadn't said anything to me about it.

Once I had determined that she was nowhere in the house, I picked up the phone and dialed my husband's number.

I knew that this phone call would either satisfy my curiosity as to why he had taken the baby to work or else it would usher in sheer terror for our family.

As I was dialing, I heard one of the kids holler from the kitchen, “Dad took the Suburban to work!  And the diaper bag is gone!”

It seemed my little detectives were coming to the same conclusion I was.

I knew as soon as I heard the “Hey” on the other end that he was expecting me to call.

“Did……you…take the baby to work??” I asked inquisitively, knowing by now that the answer was yes, but still incredibly confused as to why.

“Yeah.  Did you get some sleep?” he nonchalantly replied.

“Well…yes…but…why did you take the baby to work?”

“I knew you hadn't slept well all week.  I really didn't think she was going to get back to sleep and I wanted you to be able to get some more sleep.”

It was all true.  I hadn't slept well all week thanks to a lovely head cold and neither had the baby.  We'd both been awakened early that morning as my husband was getting ready for work.  I brought her into my bed hoping I could snuggle her back to sleep, but she was very restless.

Once my husband was ready for work, he picked her up and took her back to bed.  “You're not going to get any sleep this way,” he told me.

Only he apparently wasn't putting her in bed; he was taking her to work with him.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I asked over the phone.

“Because I didn't want you worrying about whether she was okay or whether I was able to get my work done with her here.  I knew you'd sleep better if you didn't have anything on your mind.  And I knew you'd know where she was when you woke up.  So anyway, now I'll bring her back home.”

So now as she rests comfortably back in her bed, and I sit here reflecting on the events of this morning, I ask myself what point I'm trying to make by telling this story.

And I guess it's this:

I was able to stay calm and assume that my husband probably had her at work even though I couldn't think of a good reason why at the time.
And he was able to make a decision like that, knowing that my reaction would be pretty much exactly what it was.

Why?

Because we trust one another.  And we trust one another because we know each other well.  And we know each other well because we work hard at it!

• Clear communication.
• Spending one on one time together regularly.
• Learning and making note of what makes the other person tick – what do they like, what do they dislike, what stresses them out, what helps them relax, etc.

These are all things we have to do to make sure we know each other well.

Daddy combing my hair

In conclusion, I have two things to be thankful for this weekend.

1. That my little girl was safe and sound with her daddy.
2. That her daddy loves both of us fiercely and works hard to show us that he does!