Thank You, Baby Monitor

One of the beauties of modern technology for parents is the ability to watch our children unobserved. A video baby monitor comes in very handy for this.

This morning, I woke up a bit before Ryan’s usual get-up time, so I went downstairs to catch up on e-mails before he woke up, and I watched him on the monitor. Since our bedroom is just down the hall from his, I am very used to hearing him sing and coo and run through his entire vocabulary (“Ball! Up! Bye-bye! K! K! K! Ba-dup-uh-dup! Uh-oh!”) to himself for a while before he yells to get up. But this was my first chance to actually watch him as he wakes up. I loved seeing him go from barely stirring to sitting straight up and deliberately ejecting every item from his crib within a few seconds. I laughed at his (nearly successful) attempts to throw his leg over the top of the crib rail and escape. I laughed even harder as he sat in the middle of his crib looking around as if wondering, “Well, what next?” And I smiled as I watched him playing with his own toes, rolling back and forth just because he could, and even bouncing up and down and rattling the crib bars for effect.

This afternoon, I am watching him go down somewhat reluctantly for a nap. He played with his toys for a bit, then threw himself down on his tiger pillow and began making gargling noises. I’m not sure if he was trying to fake me out with fake snoring, or if he was just amusing himself, but I was certainly amused either way. And he’s currently making motorboat noises while shoving his blanket through the crib bars and then fishing it back in again.

I consider myself very fortunate that he is so good at entertaining himself. It gives me a huge amount of freedom to do chores around the house, to get dinner on the table safely without a small, curious child underfoot, and occasionally to just lay on the couch and catch a quick (and often much-needed) catnap while he is safely in his playpen. But to be honest, I’d much rather just sit and watch him while he plays. I love to see his curiosity, his fascination with his own body and abilities as well as the world around him, and his eager exploration of everything within reach. And I appreciate all the modern conveniences that allow me to take a secret peek into his world.

Off-Duty Time

As much as I love being a mom, even being a stay-at-home mom, there are definitely times when I need a little break. You can’t do anything 24/7 without losing your mind eventually. So those hours when I get to put up the mental “Off Duty” sign are just wonderful.

Take last night, for example. I went out to dinner with a girlfriend and Herb took baby duty for the evening. Now, I don’t want to make it sound like he never does this, or that I’m usually in charge in the evening. As a matter of fact, most of the time as soon as he comes home from work, he takes charge of Ryan and I get to make dinner unencumbered, or work at the computer, or run a load of laundry or dishes. Any he always does tubby time and bedtime. But I feel like I’m still on call, simply because I’m there. And of course, the mom-radar never shuts off, so I’m still on alert. But getting to be out of the house, blissfully unaware of any fidgeting or crankiness or lack of cooperation, now that’s being off duty.

Even this morning I’m getting a bit of off-duty time. I heard Ryan fussing at 6 am (!!) this morning, and when I went in to check on him, he was flipped over on his back, turned sideways in the crib, with his blanket off him and mushed in the corner, and he was grinning exuberantly at me, absolutely wide awake. So I put him back on his belly where he could reach his toys, tucked his blanket back over him, and waited to see what he would do. Instead of turning to me or fussing, he very contentedly began chewing on his elephant’s ears, and as I headed back to bed for what I hoped would be 15 or 20 more minutes of peace, I heard him turn on his sunshine music box. I dropped off to sleep pretty quickly, so I’m not sure if he kept playing for a long time or if he dropped back to sleep pretty quickly himself, but I do know that when I got up at 8 to take a shower, he was sound asleep. And as I’m writing this, he’s just barely starting to stir. Which means that I had a wonderful leisurely breakfast all by myself (Daddy’s getting over a bad cold so he’s sleeping a bit late, too). I enjoy having company, but every now and then it’s nice to have a few minutes to myself without my “mommy” hat on.

And I find that those few minutes to myself rejuvenate me for another day of mommyhood. I’m glancing at the baby monitor as I write, and I feel a little thrill of excitement and joy as I see some stirring, a little hand squeezing his blanket, a fuzzy little head turning back and forth, hearing an occasional soft peep. I’m looking forward with renewed energy to another day of watching my little man explore and discover and learn. But for a few more minutes, I’ll enjoy being off duty and just watching him sleep.

"I'm Watching the Baby"

One of the best baby gadgets we have is our video monitoring system. We have a multi-level house, and when I'm working in the basement office (when I'm busy blogging, for example) I can't hear all the way up to the nursery. It's not a problem when I'm puttering in the kitchen, because the sound carries from the second floor to the first. But in the basement, I have no idea what kind of din might be going on up there. Fortunately, the video monitor lets me keep an eye and an ear on things.

One of the features I really like is the visual noise level monitor. Which means that I don't have to listen to the screaming when I'm letting Ryan cry himself to sleep, I only need to keep an eye on the red lights to know whether he's given up the ghost or if he's still yelling. And I can turn on the viewscreen any time I like to see if he's squirming and wriggling or if he's physically collapsed but still protesting. If he's making little peeps I can take a look to see if he's cooing in his sleep or if he's getting wiggly and starting to wake up.

But the best feature of all is that Daddy can check in on the monitor any time he likes. It's hooked up to our computer, which has Slingbox. For all you technophobes out there, that means that as long as the monitor is plugged into its little docking station, we can tie in to the camera from any internet connection anywhere on earth. (And I suppose, technically in space as well, although I doubt we'll have the opportunity to test that theory.) So Daddy can peek at Ryan from his computer or even his phone whenever he needs a baby fix, or whenever I let him know that something cute is going on. And we have a second, mobile camera as well as the fixed one over the crib, so even if Ryan is playing in his exersaucer or his jumperoo or his bouncy chair, or if he's just playing in my arms or having tummy time, I can set up a camera so Daddy can see exactly what he's up to. He never has to miss a first word or step or even giggle:

This morning after I gave Ryan his bottle, he seemed to be out cold, so I went to put him down in his crib. He stirred a little when I laid him on his back, so I flipped him onto his tummy and he settled back down. When I got downstairs I checked the monitor and he was wide awake - and pushing himself up with his arms to look around the crib! I immediately e-mailed Herb to tell him, "BabyCam alert: Ryan's doing pushups in the crib!" A few minutes later the phone rang, and I recognized Herb's cell phone number. As soon as I picked it up, he announced excitedly, "Hi sweetie! I'm watching the baby!" And what more wonderful thing for a daddy than to be able to watch the baby, too, even if it happens to be Mommy's time to watch the baby in person.

The Wonders of Technology

When I was pregnant with Ryan, one of the most daunting tasks I had to do was figuring out what equipment and supplies we needed to get ready for his arrival. Back when I was a baby, it was a much less complicated task: diapers and rubber pants (cloth was the only option), glass bottles with nipples (the only kind available), clunky molded plastic infant seat, and maybe a molded plastic bathtub. Now we have our choice of cloth or disposable diapers (6 kinds of each, with padding in different places and various kinds of miracle absorbency promises), BHA-free plastic bottles with the air vent nipple OR disposable drop-ins OR Dr. Brown's with the realistic angled nipple, a car seat that pops into place AND transforms into a carrier AND goes in the stroller three different ways AND fits into a grocery cart AND sits in an upside-down restaurant booster seat (how did I not know that trick?) AND rocks the baby to sleep (AND, I suspect, turns into a rocket ship or a nuclear submarine or a stealth fighter or something else that would make James Bond jealous, if only I knew which buttons to push), and a veritable zoo of cute bathtubs (whales and goldfish and zebras, oh my). So even when you know what stuff you need, you have to choose which "flavor" of stuff.

But the most amazing thing to me was how everything has batteries. They all vibrate, or light up, or play music. We had a hard time finding a Pack N Play that didn't sing a lullaby and rock the baby to sleep for you. Or a bouncy chair that expected the baby to do the bouncing. At least with most of those things, you don't have to use the electronic gadgets. You can turn off the music on the Pack N Play and ignore the vibrate option on the bouncy seat. Most of the battery-operated stuff will still function without batteries. But so much of it seems to take away anything for the parent or child to do! To me, the whole point of a bouncy seat is to encourage baby to bounce; the point of mommy lingering by the crib while baby drifts off is for HER to sing a lullaby; the point of toys was to teach baby to manipulate them and make them work, not for them to wiggle and bounce and sing on their own.

Then there are the real hard-core technological wonders, many of which really do make life easier. My favorite of these is the video baby monitor. In my mom's day, the only "baby monitor" they had was an open door and attentive ears. When I was baby-sitting as a teenager, we had audio baby monitors so you could listen to the baby from the other side of the house. But for Ryan, we have a video monitor so I can not only hear but see him from the other side of the house, from out in the yard, or even from the neighbor's kitchen drinking coffee (not that I would do that, but I COULD). And because my husband is a brilliant geek, the video feed is tied in to the computer so Daddy can peek at Ryan from his work computer or even from his phone any time he wants! Whenever Ryan does something cute, I send Daddy a text message (yet more convenient technology) so he can take a look. So when Ryan takes his first step or says his first word, even if it happens while Daddy is at work, he won't have to miss that miraculous moment.

Another advantage of technology is that it really can save time, when used well. No more trying to calm a hungry baby for the 20 minutes it took to sterilize and prepare a bottle. No more hour at the end of every day rinsing all the dirty diapers that had been soaking in bleach all day long. No more running in to check the baby because the audio monitor has been TOO quiet. Even simpler technologies like antibacterial wipes and washing machines and dryers save us hours of time.

I guess when it comes right down to it, technology is a mixed blessing. For every mom who thinks she can't sing and lets a machine sing lullabies to her baby, there's a mom who can check in on her baby from her desk at work. For every baby who's rocked to sleep by an electronic massager instead of bouncing on someone's hip, there's a colicky baby whose mommy gets a break from walking and bouncing him 24/7. For every dad who moves the baby from car seat to bouncy seat to programmable playmat with hardly a cuddle, there's a dad who snuggles her in the Bjorn carrier all day long while doing other chores. Like most things in life, technology is what you make of it.