I had terrible dreams last night and tonight I was thinking about delaying bedtime because I was a little skittish about going under the blanket again. I was somewhat amused at myself for feeling like that, but nevertheless, I did stay up watching a movie and then thinking and then getting a Diet Coke and then reading a little and then . . . oh dear, what could I do. Well, I thought that I’d check the weather and see if there was any breaking news on CNN.

I think the headline was something about a toddler in Lake Michigan, blown in by the wind. I lived in Palatine for some years on the northwest side of Cook County – and, yes, I was actually alive when I voted – and had visions of a kid losing his balance and tripping into the shallow water at the beach. I guess I had Winnetka’s waterfront in my mind’s eye and a memory of Quentin tripping on the sand and going nose first into the water when he was, at most, barely two. We plucked him out.

But when I read the article, I discovered that the toddler had been in a stroller and the wind had blown him off of a pier and into 10 feet of water where he remained for 15 minutes, while his grandfather and others tried to get him out. Fifteen seconds seems like an eternity in a situation like that; I cannot imagine 15 minutes. And 10 feet doesn’t seem that deep until you try to get down that far – at least for me. And that’s at the Y in a swimsuit. And the water there is never in the 40’s.

The little boy is in critical condition – I don’t know if the cold water was cold enough or not to protect his brain.

Now, that’s a nightmare.

(A more detailed account is in The Chicago Tribune.)