Okay, if you read the comment on my last post that was written by my Aunt Sissy (now “Grammy of three”)…you may be wondering. Baby Monitors…gas stations…what?

Well, there’s actually a story that includes both of those particular elements…and is one that I have wavered back and forth on whether or not to tell. But since Sis brought it up, I might as well tell it.

Here goes…

This past weekend, my sister, her boyfriend, my youngest brother, & his girlfriend came to stay with us. We had every available couch and floor space in our house taken by people & luggage (since we don’t have a guest bedroom anymore).

On Saturday evening, our friend, J, & his girl friend came over to visit for a while. I put Iliya down to sleep at his normal bedtime and we (the 8 “grown-ups” - haha - in the house) pulled out some games. We could not decide how hard we wanted to exercise our brains…but ended up going with mild/moderate exercise by playing B@lderdash.

Now, I won’t go into the specifics of how to play B@lderdash, because it’s not really relevant to the story except to say that - on Saturday night - I explained all the basic rules for those who had never played the game. We closed off the den to keep our noise level from waking Iliya. But to make sure that I heard him, if he were to cry, I turned the volume up a bit on the baby monitor that we keep in the den.

So…with the white noise of the baby monitor in the background, we (the 8 “grown-ups”) sat on the floor around the game board and commenced to playing the first round of the game.

The first word of the game that we had to (attempt to) define was “napiform.” I doubt I will ever forget that word because, after collecting each entry, I prepared to read them aloud before taking a vote on which definition each person believed to be correct. I took a deep breath, and all the sudden, over the monitor, I heard a man speak,

“Hey little buddy. What’s going on?..........”

The rest of this story lasted about a minute or two, but at the time (and even looking back), time felt like it had stopped. I remember everything in snapshots of action.

When I heard the man's voice, I looked around – and my thoughts darted from one thing to the next, starting with wondering if Iliya had been crying? Who was missing from the room, that might be in his room, comforting him? But surely, I would’ve heard that. Maybe my other brother had decided to come into town. But why wouldn’t he let us know, first? Maybe my brother-in-law had brought our niece over. But why would any of them go into Iliya’s room before coming to find the rest of us? And…oh, my goodness, Iliya is asleep…why would they want to wake him up? And that’s not any of their voices, anyway (remember, split second thoughts – none of them were quite that formed as they ran through my head).

From the looks on everyone else’s faces, they were all thinking/wondering similar things – trying to figure out who was missing from the room. All the sudden, I had a terrifying realization and said,

“Nathan. Someone is in Iliya’s room.”

And this simple sentence created a scatter effect among our group. Everyone did their thing. Nathan checked the front door and raced to the bedroom to unlock his gun. J ran to Iliya’s room. I ran over to the baby monitor in the den, trying to hear what was going on…trying to decide on my plan of action – I’d never been truly paralyzed by fear, but that’s pretty much what happened. Also close to me – behind the couch – were J’s girl friend, my sister & her boyfriend.

Over the baby monitor, we (in the den) got pieces of conversation, “Yeah…I’ve been on a road trip, and I’m so tired...…” Still, I wasn’t sure what I needed to do. My sister wanted me to turn the monitor off – she couldn’t bear hearing it – but I wouldn’t do it, because I needed to hear, to know what was going on.

All the sudden, everything was quiet.

Nathan & J came back in the room and said that there hadn’t been anyone there (in fact, J had burst into Iliya’s room so quickly and loudly, that amazingly, the child slept right through it all).

Suddenly, it occurred to me that the terrifying few moments had been brought about by our baby monitor picking up the frequency of someone else’s monitor. When the realization settled in that some travel-weary father had come in to tell his baby good night (rather than a travel-weary psychopath wandering into our house)…I was able to smile and actually laugh about our crazy reactions.

We all wandered back into the living room, chattering (yes, our nerves were still a bit jangled) about what had happened, and what had been going through each of our minds during those few moments.

Then, Nathan said, “Where are Johnathan & Tessa?” about the same time I noticed that the our sliding door was wide open – the dogs were outside, and the cats were sniffing around, calculating their own escape. We weren’t sure if J & T had cell phones with them – but all we knew is that they were gone. Nathan did a cursory search through (and on the outside of) the house. They were nowhere to be found.

About the time we decided to pick up the phone to try them on their cell phones, the home phone rang, and it was Johnathan. They had taken off, fearing for their lives…jumped the fence, run through the neighbor’s backyard, and to a nearby gas station. They still had no idea if we were all safe in the house – and Johnathan had called nine-one-one, to report……well, whatever he thought had been going on. We told them the coast was clear and that they could come back safely. In the meantime, Nathan called the police station to let them know that everything was fine – but they said that they had never received a dispatch.

Johnathan later told us that the dispatcher had not taken him seriously. He had given dispatch a partial address, and told them that he wasn’t sure what was going on – he hadn’t heard from the rest of us, but that he was afraid that a stranger had entered the house. Seems serious enough to me, but I guess the dispatcher didn’t think so. He told Johnathan to call him back if he heard from the rest of us.

I really wish that John had had the presence of mind to ask for the dispatcher’s ID. I won’t get off on that soapbox, but what if we HAD had a true emergency and the only one who had been able to get to a phone was my sweet squirrely little brother?

It took us a little while (longer for some than others), but we were able to truly be able to laugh about it. We’ve all agreed that those couple minutes were a couple of the most heart-stopping moments of our lives.

And after about a half-hour of chatter, we got back to our game. We eventually learned that “napiform” is something that is turnip-shaped, and we were all relieved to have a happy ending to a scary night. My sister was glad, because she won the game.

And I was especially grateful, because I was surrounded by friends and family that proved - in their own way - that they would look out for each other…and in a room down the hall, a sweet child slept safely and soundly amidst the drama of a crazy and memorable night.