They’re Watching You

Technology is A-MA-ZING! I have a video baby monitor in my house. I don’t even have to get out of my bed to see if my baby is awake or asleep, with the press of one button I can look directly at her sweet little face. There is no creaking door or bumping into her bed in the dark to wake her up. It is FABULOUS!

Several weeks ago I put Sadie(3 mos) in the bed, wide awake (just like the books say) to go to sleep. I went to my bedroom, crawled into the bed with my book and turned the baby monitor on. My baby was GONE. My heart started racing, I broke out in a cold sweat and bile started to rise in the back of my throat…HOW could this be happening? I JUST walked out of her room….then I realized that not only was my baby gone, but her bed looked different and her bedding was gone. What the?

I ran into Sadie’s room to find her exactly where I had left her. Ahhhh, OK, so that was somebody else’s bed I was looking at…WAIT, if I can see into someone else’s house that means…they can see into mine. Oh crap. (Apparently one of my neighbors has the same baby monitor on the same channel and I was picking up their camera instead of my own!)

My mind raced back through the evening histronics of getting my 2 year old and my 4 year old into the bed. All the shouting, the screamed threats: “You’d better get in here RIGHT NOW and brush your teeth OR ELSE!” “If you touch her one more time I am going to spank you, do you hear me? Do you understand?” (Yes, we spank. I trust Dr Dobson, not Dr Phil. If you want to judge me I’ll be glad to take the day off and let YOU show me how it’s REALLY done!) “Quit acting like a snake and PUT YOUR PAJAMAS ON, NOW!”

Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Someone had heard all of this. SOMEONE in MY neighborhood had heard this. I froze as I realized that Zeb was outside in the garage as I got out of the shower that night, Sadie was crying and I walked into her room STRAIGHT out of the shower to pick her up. OH, crap.

My mind was racing and I was in a panic. I could just see Miss Perfect Mommy (you know her, she would never DREAM of spanking her kids, never has to tell them more than once to do anything, her kids pick up their toys without being told, eat all their vegetables and never have a cross word to say to their siblings…) watching her baby monitor in horror as I traipse around my house naked, swinging a wooden spoon at anything under 3 feet tall.

She’s already called DHR, I just know it. Where are they, I wonder? About to break down my door? Sitting in that unmarked car across the street waiting for my slightest misstep? I don’t know where Miss Perfect’s house is, so…Thank God, I sigh with relief, they don’t know where I am. LESSON LEARNED!

From that point on, anytime I pick my baby up out of the crib, the camera goes OFF! Yesterday I heard someone talking on the baby monitor. “Mm-hmm,” I thought to myself, “let’s just see how perfect you are…” I started to openly spy on this poor unsuspecting woman. She was changing her baby’s diaper and cooing to her, “Poooooor baby, hasn’t had a poopie diaper ALLLL day! Have you? HAVE YOU? NOOO, no you haven’t! ” “Honey, ” she says to her husband, “can you hand me a diaper and some wipes?”

I grinned with satisfaction as I turned the monitor off. Only a first time mom would actually waste a wipe on a wet diaper, which means she has NO idea the havoc that will be unleashed on her once that kid can walk and talk.

Perfect? Hmph! We’ll see who’s perfect! I give her 6 months before she’s knocking on my door asking for a wooden spoon and instructions on how to use it.