So the other night at bedtime we played a major game of musical beds with the kids. I can’t remember the circumstances exactly, just that we were all cranky and tired from re-entry from spring vacation, and the kids didn’t want to sleep in their own beds, and we were way too tired to protest.

Anyhoo, it went something like this…

My husband and son fell asleep in our bed.
My daughter and I went to my son’s bed (it’s a double and hers a twin, so I opted for more space despite being surrounded by rubber lizards and Star Wars toys that align his headboard).

After a few hours of the slumber party, I awoke with a case of pollen-induced sniffles and decided I reeeeeally wanted to be in my own bed. I transferred my son out of my bed to his sister’s room (Note: 50 pounds of a sleeping kindergarten is a force to be reckoned with, especially when you have to hoist him over his sister’s safety bed rail).

After the transfer, I checked on my little girl, who, curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, seemed to be doing fine solo. I snuck back into my bed and under the warm sheets…ahhhhh.

What was surely just minutes later, I awoke to a snoring boy who’d snuck back in. Darn it. I was now sandwiched between husband and son, unable to move or breathe thanks to what was now full-on allergy congestion. The clock said 4am. Seriously?! 4am?!? My post-vacation to-do list began to swirl in my head and I crawled out of my loud cocoon and just committed to starting the day.

The coffee went on.
I checked the local news.
I decided I didn’t need to get stressed out over the swine flu before daybreak and turned the TV off.
I headed downstairs to my office to tackle emails.
I was cranking along, absorbed in correspondence, clutching my faithful coffee mug.
Then all of the sudden I hear a dull “THUD” overhead.
I froze.
A second later, crying.

Instinctively, I knew — my daughter had fallen out of bed because she’s used to having the safety rails. I bolted up the stairs and into the room. She wasn’t on the bed or on the floor. But I could hear her crying.

Oh my god, she’s fallen on the other side, in that little space between the bed and the wall! I leapt across the bed.

She was screaming bloody murder, and I could barely make out in the dark that she was wedged in the space sideways with her face turned up.
She was crying, “My head!!”
I felt a wave of panic.
In that moment in the dark, at 5:00am, with adrenaline running through me in full force, I thought she might really be in pain, or worse, she’d really injured her head.
I reached to pull her out but she was wedged in pretty tight.
I screamed for my husband.
He ran in, stumbling to get the lamp on.
“Get the light!!!” I screamed, “She’s stuck!!”
I thought about just moving the bed but it’s super-heavy with drawers underneath.
“We have to move the bed!!” I spat.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic!” he said.
I reached down again and somehow shimmied her out.
Thank goodness.

I pulled her to my lap and hugged her tight. She was in a full-force wail. I stroked her hair and rocked her and whispered,”You’re OK baby, you’re OK.” My heart was still pounding in my chest. My hands were a little bit shaky.

I gave her a quick once over and realized she was in fact, fine.

A few minutes later, when we had all calmed down, I saw that the big, heavy toy bins at the foot of my son’s bed had been moved back a foot or so.
“How did those get like that?” I said.
“I moved them when you said we had to move the bed,” my husband replied.
He’d done it so fast I hadn’t even realized it in the heat of the moment.

Wow. What a way to start the day.

And I got to thinking, its moments like that when you realize how amazing your own body can be..the strength of your own sheer will when you think your child might be in danger…those moments when instinct and adrenaline just take over.

And whether it’s real danger, or just another bump in the night, we don’t know.

But we go flying up the stairs each time just the same.