Baby monitoring
I’m a little on the neurotic end of the where’s-the-baby-oh-thank-goodness-there-she-is-
now-where-did-she-go spectrum. I’m twitchy around children in water, for example. And I am still pretty fond of the baby monitor. It’s a little connection to the distant child, a little shred of insight into what’s going on in their sleeping world. I can hear them playing (and fighting) before they sleep. Sometimes, magically, I hear them laugh in their sleep and all seems right with the world. But foolishly, while they are asleep, I miss them. Sometimes I go in to kiss them and murmur lovingness at them (which is downright stupid since they’re sleeping and at best, I’m screwing with their dreams).
I actually have a lot of sympathy with the camp that says, if you can’t hear the baby from whatever room you’re in, the baby doesn’t need you badly enough, but frankly, I like to know if the baby is crying (or in my case, whether the children are tearing each other limb from limb), whether or not I’m planning on tearing up the stairs like a maniac or sauntering coolly and calmly. And there have been times when the baby monitor had taken on a talismanic power. Like both times of trying to get the children off night feeds. They would cry in their room and I would cry in my room and hold the monitor and stroke it lovingly and whisper ‘I’m sorry but Mommy really needs to sleep more than three hours a night’ to the flashing red lights.
Bedtimes can be still be rough. Children are beat. Parents are beat. A time that should be filled with gentle kisses, loving pats, good books and tuckings in often becomes a wild stuffing of rebellious children into beds that you wish had straps before staggering off for ten minutes of grown-up time (or even an episode of Buffy) before slumping into unconsciouness. Last night was a good (bad) example of this. I was worn to a tiny, grumpy nubbin. Helena had accidentally napped so was bouncing off the walls and was yelling, jumping on her bed and trying to steal Daniel’s Gussie. (You don’t mess with the boy’s Gussie.) I remonstrated. Got cross. Got even crosser. Yelled. Tucked in with a firmness that was only just this side of fierceness. Burst into tears. Turned out the lights preemptorily and left. And in my own bed an hour later, the children both safely asleep, I clutched the monitor and told it I was so sorry. And that I would be gentler and more patient the next night.
The monitor gave me the green light.
Oh what an accurate piece of writing. Before (in my pre-motherhood days) I would have thought you were crazy posting this. Now, I am just amazed that you can capture *my* feelings and actions so accurately, when you are describing yours.
I love the way that small children, no matter how big a fuss the night before, start the day with a clean, fresh, no grudges and no guilt slate.
Can I borrow your monitor?
Wild stuffing of rebellious children in to bed is such a perfect description.
Oh Karrie, that was such a funny thing to say- I am so with you- can I borrow your moniter too Stunts?
I picked up the “what do you really want for your children book” again last night. I’m still recovering. I loved your post, and I needed it today.
oh…there is
SO
much of this that i recognize…
not little hints of recognition
as in, “i kind of do that”
but glaringly
as in, “ohmygodthatisSOOOOOme!!!!”
heehee
and a little secret…
i continued using said moniter
up until my daughter was about
nine or ten,
especially if she was with
someone i was…well…
not so certain of…
i just had the moniter
on upstairs
and could hear if arguing
would escalate
and who was being mean to who
and i know that is sad
and an invasion of her privacy
and alllll of that rot
but
that’s why i said it was
a secret
teehee
(by the way, i have
since lent the moniter to my
brother and his wife so…)
heehee
Oh, I miss the days when breastfeeding solved every little problem!
I love what Custancia says about how young ones start each day fresh and open. Why can’t we do that? Adults, or at least those of us with wide streaks of melancholia, hold everything while waiting for that moment of grace that will let us go on. What if the morning sun can be that moment?
“They would cry in their room and I would cry in my room and hold the monitor and stroke it lovingly and whisper I’m sorry but Mommy really needs to sleep more than three hours a night to the flashing red lights.”
Wow, I think we have all found ourselves in this position at one time or another.
Baby monitors are one of those things which I don’t use much now (living in one huge loft as we do) but which I imagine I’ll be using all the time when my child gets a bit older (because I am not above violating his civil liberties if it means foiling a plot to, say, construct gigantic paper wings and test them out by jumping off the roof.)
Getting cross and yelling, tears, turning out lights, oh yes, it all resonates with me. And mine are five and six, every day I wonder if I’m doing a good enough job, every night I sneak in to look at them sleeping and smell their hair and touch their hands and feet and soak up all that sweetness and promise tomorrow, tomorrow I will be the perfect mother and every day I fail utterly. But I mean well.
Wonderful post.
I still use the baby monitor at night with our daughter….I cannot imagine not using it, although once she is a teenager she may want a little of that PRIVACY … hehe
i cannot remember if my mother used such a device with me; in one sense, it appeals. in another, it perplexes. but i haven’t any children, and so i can only think of the times that i awake in the silence of night, and michael is so deeply asleep that i lean over just to check–one exhalation will do, and i feel safer.
i suppose we all need baby monitors at one point–to monitor the child within us.