When your kid goes missing....

Have you ever "lost" your child, even for a few mins? There's the panic and fear that rips your heart out of your chest, the battle between thoughts of "worst case senerios" vs. thoughts of "their just off playing somewhere". Seems anyone who has ever raised kids or taken care of kids, has experienced this once or twice. I know I've given my parents a scare, more that once!  Nicole and I had our first panic-attack a few nights ago.

By the time I got home from work, picked up the kids, made dinner, fed them, gave Lucas a bath, and did the night time routine with both kids, it was nearly 10pm. I was exhausted, and dreading the alarm @ 4:45am. It's been a 30 min ordeal getting Lucas to finally get to sleep.  I knew I'd fall asleep in a matter of mins, and didn't want him getting out of bed once I'd fallen asleep. I let him go to bed with me, knowing he would more than likely just fall asleep. Nicole was working closing shift, and would be home around 12, and would put him in his own bed.

 Nicole wakes me up around 1am, asking me "Where is Lucas?"  It took me a few seconds to realize he wasn't in bed with me. He wasn't in his bed either. I jumped up out of bed, and we both tore through the house. Looked under our bed, his bed, in the living room, in the corners, under the tables, in Sadie's room, in both bathrooms...no where to be found! Then the fear of What If started. It was in the 30's that night, and I started thinking of him going outside, and getting locked out of the house. I was so tired I wouldn't have heard him go outside. I feeling of guilt thinking that you could have, should have prevented this is awful. As a parent you feel you should always protect your child. To know you failed, is unbearable. On the second pass through the house, I went back in his room, and the bi-fold closet door was closed. There's no way he closed it from the inside right? Wrong! He was inside the closet, asleep on a pile of books. Somehow he had managed to grab on to the louvers and close the door from the inside. We asked him the next morning "Why were you sleeping in your closet?" He said "I was reading the books!" in a tone that implied we should have known that!  He's spent the last few days telling everyone he slept in the closet, we however, didn't think it was that funny at the time.