On a night a few weeks ago, we didn't need to the baby monitor to know that something was wrong with the baby. As my body and mind both synced into a good rest, I was rattled awake by the most awful and loud cry from the baby room.
I had never heard this cry from him before. It was shrill. It was sudden. There was no build to it, only an immediate high pitched and loud cry. It instantly woke me and my wife.
We are both constantly on edge when he's sleeping in his crib. We've heard stories of SIDS and of babies being hurt in the middle of their sleep. Sleeping 7 hours with a baby one room over and sleeping 7 hours with no baby are two different 7 hour sleeps. Our bodies physically learned that we have to be connected to the kid.
This alarming scream in the middle of the night put me into protector mode. Let me describe how my body reacted to it.
When the scream happened, my mind woke up before my eyes opened. My mind thought quick: my baby is in trouble and I got to fix this. I immediately envisioned someone lifting the kid out of his crib and either wanting to take off with him, or hurt him. Still before my eyes were open, I decided that someone will be hurt as a result. Either I'm going to be a bloody mess trying to save my child, or some stranger was going to spend the duration it took police to get here as my personal speed bag. Either result, I was OK with.
Adrenaline surged. My eyes shot open, and I ripped the covers off my body at exactly the same time. I took only two steps from the bed to our door. I peered into the hallway expecting to see a stranger with my baby, but I kept my torso out of visibility and used my off hand to hold my now-track-star wife from sprinting into a potentially threatening situation.
I used my left hand to feel along the dark hallway walls and approached the door to the baby room. With the same posture, I looked into the baby's room again holding back my frantic wife. I didn't see anyone. But I still wasn't satisfied. Wife tended to the crying child while I busted open closet doors looking for the crazy person who broke into my apartment.
The whole first cry to being crib-side only took about 3 seconds. We've never moved so fast and smart. We looked like a two person SWAT team moving to take down a target.
Turns out the Kicker does this in his sleep every so often. He simply breaks out into a horrifying cry and just needs a second to gather himself before he falls back asleep.
I don't remember past events well. My memory is mostly foggy. The events I remember best in my past are the events when most of my senses were engaged. That cry lit up my 5 senses and then some I didn't know I had.
This story has more worth than just exchanging at a family party. The moment I heard that cry and decided that I was both fine with being fatefully harmed or reigning down my 156 lbs. of fury on someone for the sake of protecting my family, I felt proud. Not look-at-me proud. But self-reflectively proud that all those times I sat awake thinking about what I should do for my family, I am willing to do for them.
