Oh boy do I not love technology...and boy how much are we dependent on it.
Bradley has seizures and retching/choking episodes. It's hard enough that these things happen during the day, but there's a whole special horror about them when it happens in the middle of the night. These things happen at any time and with no warning. The seizures tend to happen around sleep, it was just around naps, but then he had one in the middle of the night over summer. Bradley's retching/choking is an unmistakable sound, I here it and start running. When he has a seizure he makes a very distinct cry. I hear that and I start running. Our house is like a track meet in the middle of the night sometimes. It would be funny if it didn't scare the Hell out of me.
We try to be prepared for any and all of these. We have had a video baby monitor in his room from the moment he went into his crib. And that worked great for a really long time. I could hear him and see him, and the picture was so clear I could see the feeding tube and knew if Bradley was wrapped up or not. But being the helpful little soul that he is he felt that my video monitor needed to be washed so he tossed it into my kitchen sink full of soapy water. And while my monitor was really clean, and a bag of rice did bring back a half picture, it really wasn't the half I needed to see.
So we bought a new baby monitor. And for whatever reason, they just don't seem to be getting better. This second one is iffy at best. We noticed a bit more white noise at our old house, same when we were in San Diego, and then when we moved back to Camarillo, good grief...the wheels fell of the bus. I can still kind of see him, and I can hear him. The important thing has always been, hear him, check instantly to see what he's doing and go from there. Suddenly, with a living room between us, the monitor can't handle the separation. A monitor with separation anxiety...how ridiculous is that?
Month one we had no problem, it sat on my nightstand like always. Then we hit month Two. Suddenly, our monitor is "Out of Range" hmmm, really, cause it wasn't out of range a month ago and NOW it's out of range. The dumb thing sits by the door, as close to the frame as possible so we can get a signal. The White noise is louder and at times that alone keeps me awake. Or, the monitor will go from in range to out and that wakes me up because it gets loud and then really quiet. Talk about creepy! I was really aware of this, so I stopped sleeping well.
Worried about Bradley and maybe me too, Eric bought a camera for the house that works off wi-fi. Super cool, great picture and sound, and we see him on a bigger IPad screen! At first it was great, especially since the baby monitor was in complete meltdown. But we keep having to refresh, the screen times out and everything freezes until I tell it to refresh. No big deal during the day, only a big deal at night or any time he sleeps and I might want to consider sleeping too. So I was checking Bradley constantly. Eric got a new router, new something or other...might have hooked us to the nearest cell tower, or a satellite; heck, I don't really know what... But he did everything we know to try and it still doesn't stay connected.
So, we keep the in and out of range baby monitor on to help me hear him, and then I keep the wi-fi camera on so that if I hear him, I refresh the camera while I find my glasses. Once I have those I can assess him and see if he needs me or not. Or that was how it worked a couple nights, and sometimes it still works.
Mostly, now I get Bradley getting up without a sound and scooting down the hallway. If he's in footed pajamas the scuffing sound rouses me in a mild panic as I jump up to meet him. Nights he has no footed pajamas he might do what he did this morning at 3:30 am. He bounces into our room like a ninja...sneaks up to my side of the bed, plants both hands on the bed jumps up on his toes then with his eyes as wide as his smile he goes "Hi!" Scared the devil right out of me, and that's a feat! So I scoop up ninja boy and trudge back down the hallway to put him back to bed. He snuggles down and drifts back to sleep, so I stumble back to my bed for a little more sleep. At some point though, he made his way to the girls' room and I found him snuggled in bed with Madison when I went to wake them up today. It was pretty stinkin' cute.
Ninja boy has been known to take his blanket and bed down in his chair, or lay down on the tile or rug in the living room. The only way I often know he's out of bed is that he wakes up the cats who start roaming the house suddenly remembering that they are supposed to be nocturnal hunters. It's often like playing "Where's Waldo" in the dark. The best nights are when someone else is up and moving about and I am not awake but stumbling around looking for Bradley only not finding him anywhere...only to find him in his bed happily sleeping while I am then wide awake. I usually intercept a sleep walker or listen to the end of a sleep talking conversation before I head on back to my own pillow.
Yeah, technology is great, unless you really need it and all it does is laugh at you. Grrrrr! :-)
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