Thursday, January 29, 2009

You've gotta turn it on first

What did people do before baby monitors were invented? Our baby monitor is probably one of the most used gift that we've received for Kaylani. We use it each and every night, and also several times during the day. Up until last night, we had no problems using it. The reception is great, the coverage is great, and even the sound-sensor mode works great. But we learned a valuable lesson last night. In order for the monitor to work right, you've gotta turn it on first.

For anyone who is jealous or upset that Kaylani sleeps too well for an infant or a baby, you'll be happy to know that she didn't sleep well last night at all. She was in bed by 8:30pm as usual, but she didn't stay asleep for 8 hours. She didn't even stay asleep for 6. She barely even slept for 3 hours before she woke up for the first time. So when the clock hit 11:30pm and she was awake already, it automatically became an unusual night for us.

It was around 12:30am before Mommy woke me up. She had been trying to get Kaylani back to sleep for an hour and was having no luck. Daddy tried for about 35 minutes and it was Mommy's turn again. Back and forth we went, with Kaylani falling asleep in our arms, but screaming out as soon as she realized she was in her crib alone again (which was about 10 minutes after she was put in there...or the exact amount of time it takes to get back to our bed and just about fall asleep). Around 2am, Mommy came into bed after Kaylani finally stayed asleep. 10 minutes passed and she didn't make a peep...maybe.

From 2am to 7am, Kaylani might as well have been in Vegas, because whatever happened in Kaylani's room stayed in Kaylani's room. Daddy's alarm was going off after it's 3rd snooze, and he was just about to get out of bed finally. All of a sudden, Mommy woke up and rolled over. It was at that moment that she realized that she didn't turn the monitor back on before coming back to bed. It happened lightning fast and heartstoppingly slow all at the same time. When Mommy flipped the monitor on, the cries came through instantly. I'm not even sure of the exact order of things that happened next because they happened at the same time. The monitor was barely in the on position before Mommy was out of bed and into Kaylani's room.

The next hour was spent holding and cuddling Kaylani to make sure she knew we loved her and didn't mean to abandon her. In truth, we have no idea how long she was crying for before we turned on the monitor, but if I had to guess, I wouldn't think more than 10 minutes. That's a complete guess, but based off the fact that her face wasn't completely red and her voice was definitely not hoarse. Mommy hopes that was true, but definitely fears that it was longer. Either way, the only thing we're sure of is that Kaylani was crying to herself for some amount of time.

We can't blame Kaylani for crying and screaming at the top of her lungs to try and get our attention no matter what the reason was. And we definitely won't blame each other for not being awake or alert enough to make sure that monitor was turned back on before passing out or for not being able to hear her. But there is an obvious thing to blame...WD-40. Some of you may remember the WD-40 incident, but it's because of WD-40 that Kaylani's door can't be as open as we would like. In fact, it can either be wide open, closed, or 3" open, and that's only when we use the binder clip and ribbon contraption that Mommy came up with to get the door to not be wide open or fully closed all the time.

So there are 2 things that we learned from last night into this morning. 1) WD-40 still sucks. And 2) you've gotta turn the monitor on for it to work. Consider them both, lessons learned.

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