Frightening Experience

We thought we'd lost Kara last night - and Jeff and I are both still completely freaking out over it. We had begun our nighttime routine - the kids showering or bathing (both girls wanted to take a shower in our bathroom instead of theirs, so they had to take turns). Brooke was in the shower, I was at the computer with Jeff and we were working on his Statistics homework. Kara was on our bed waiting her turn for the shower.

We heard a large crash come from the window and looked over to find no Kara and the screen missing. Remember, our bedroom is on the second floor - Jeff & I both immediately thought she was dead. I started to run downstairs and Jeff was going to take off out the window after her (his thought process when he panics baffles me still). Thankfully, we have a ledge that could be turned into a balcony and Kara only fell 3-5 feet. She walked away with only a small scrape on her head (about the size of a quarter at her hairline above her forehead), some scrapes on her feet near her ankles, and a headache. Jeff and I weren't so lucky and spent most of the night shaking and sore in every muscle (I guess the adrenaline rush had worn down and left us both really stiff).

I don't know what it would feel like to actually lose a child, but I don't think I ever want to come close to that feeling again. PLEASE make sure your kids know not to push on the screens to windows (that sounds stupid, but as much as we'd lectured Kara in the past few weeks since she has knocked out the screens to two other windows upstairs already, she still had this accident). I hope it was a lesson learned for her.