High and dry

Jonah's sleeptime ritual includes storytime followed by turning on the classical music and Mom putting up the gate in his doorway so he stays in his room. He may go right to sleep, or he may play for a few minutes with his toys before dragging one or two of them into his big-boy bed to fall asleep with. Sometimes he'll fuss a bit, but usually he knows it's time for sleep and he goes down pretty easily.

Today he was rubbing his eyes after lunch, and though it was earlier than his normal naptime, I decided to follow his cues and put him down. For several minutes after I put the gate up I'd hear bursts of cries followed by short periods of silence. I decided to let him work things out on his own and figured he'd get himself to sleep. After fifteen minutes of this, the crying became more insistant, so I decided to investigate.

I approached the doorway slowly and at an angle, peering carefully into the room so as not to bring attention to myself if he was really just sitting in the middle of the floor venting. As I got closer and my view of the room increased, I didn't see Jonah in his normal spots for vocalizing his frustration. I inched closer and craned my neck around to take in more of the room. As I did so, I realized why his crying was so sad: atop his nightstand sat my little boy--tearstreaked, red-faced, and hopelessly stranded. He had climbed up and couldn't get down.

I hopped over the gate, rescued the little dude, and had a bit of a cuddle before putting him in his bed once again. He promptly rolled over and dropped off into dreamland.


He didn't appreciate my efforts to re-create the scenario and record it for posterity.