Mom's Worst Nightmare

This past Monday through Thursday, Nos was at. my. house. Since he moved to Bend, he'd only seen Rev once in January. He took her Thursday night, and was staying with a local friend down here. I loved that idea, since with the weather we'd been having, I had nightmares of her being stuck on the other side of the pass, and me having to drive over four hours in my 4WD (which I don't know how to drive in snow) to get her. I guess this "friend" he'd been staying with ended up having romantic ideas, so Sunday night, at around 12:30am he bundled my daughter into his car, left the house (and one of Rev's shoes, GRR) and called me.

Finally, when I answered, I let him in, we played with Rev for a while, and went to bed - him on the floor with her in her room, because he insisted, even though she has a perfectly good crib. The picture I'm attaching is sad. I can't even let her wear those pajamas any more, because I can't bear it. She was wearing those the next morning...

Now please understand, I ALWAYS lock my door. Rev is going to be two in May, but she's tall, and my door handles are LOW. I think they're only about 2.5 feet off the ground, because I'm 5'2" and they're not even to my waist. Anyway, on that particular morning, he was going to stay home with her for an extra bonus day, and I went to work as usual.

I'm sure by now you can see where this is going.

I left my key on the mantle, kicked him awake, told him where it was, and left. With the door unlocked, because I didn't have the key. When I called at about 9:30, he reported she wasn't awake yet. Sometime between then and 10:30, they were both up, he fell back to sleep on the couch, and then she opened the front door, went down the stairs, and out into my apartment complex.

Let me pause for a moment to show you just how far it is from the couch to the door. Mind you, this is on a darn cell phone, so there's no fancy panoramic view in effect here. And also, he and I have talked about the fact that she can open the door. I'm almost tempted to demand that my apartment puts in knobs instead of handles, because there's no easy baby-proofing solution to the handles.

He didn't wake up until after a good samaritan had collected her off the road and returned her to my apartment office. It was a patrol car looping around the community doing that "whoop, whoop" siren noise that finally woke him up. In his defense, he's horrified. I can't imagine being the one to wake up with the door wide open and the knowledge that my child was gone. He still can't sleep at night. I got the call from him after Rev had been recovered at the office.

Need more horror? Check out the stairs. I don't even let her out of my arms when I'm with her outside the door because I'm terrified she'll fall down them.

DHS stopped by my house yesterday. How humiliating. I am a really good mom. Really. I left Nos to be in a better place with her, and she and I do just fine. He's in a much better place too. I leave for my first vacation since I found out I was pregnant this coming Wednesday, and he' scoming here to stay with Rev again. He's going to put my coffee table in front of the door, no kidding around. He's more scared than I am. Anyway, the very nice-seeming gal from DHS is going to stop by Thursday afternoon and interview him and her, and I'll make arrangements to have her stop by the following week. Since she only works during normal business hours, I'll have to grab Rev from daycare and bring her here for a couple of hours so she can see both of us.
Please understand that I know this is a huge, huge, deal. I'm a bit detached from it since I'm not the one who experinced the absolute visceral horror that Nos must have felt, but it still affects me greatly.

Thank God I move in two months. I'm ready.