Some of the scariest sounds a mom can ever hear:

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Waah, waah, waah, waah, waah.

Followed by one of the scariest sights a mom can see:

An open safety gate above a flight of stairs.

A change in routine, one little mistake = potential disaster.

Luckily, one year olds are resilient and hard to break.

Luckily, our stairs have carpet and our flights are short.

Luckily, Lexi is just fine.

But I now know fear like I've never known. Those brief seconds,

from hearing the thuds and the earth rattling cries,

to seeing the gate wide open,

to my hubby running over to her aid,

to me gasping and yelling one loud emphatic profane word,

to hearing the words,

She's okay, 

shook me to the core.

Due to the tragic news of Farah and MJ's deaths yesterday, I was already in quite a introspective, bizarre mood. But after Lex's fall, even when we realized she was fine and she began playing and stomping around like usual, I could not shake my heavy heart. I lay in bed, tossing and turning replaying the sequence of events. A milion what ifs danced in my head. I thought about the recent tragedy in San Francisco where a father left his baby in the car for an entire work day. It made me realize just how quickly, how easily accidents can happen.

When I saw the clock strike 1:00am I decided to let go of my negative thoughts and I turned my "what if..." to thank god! Taking stock of my blessings helped lull me to sleep finally, but not before I went into her room to check on her one more time.

Being the overly cautious hypochondriac that I am, I took her in to the doctor today just to make sure she was okay--and thankfully she is.

But I am changed forever.