big boy | Debbie Chun

When I was registering for baby things I was on bed rest which meant I had time to do research on things such as baby monitors. A generous friend bought us our fancy video monitor and we’ve enjoyed watching Jack sleep. In fact I didn’t realize how dependent I had become until it broke.

Jack was playing with the parent unit which he thinks looks like a phone. And even though he was very gentle with it, somehow the port for the charger broke and the battery has been useless for a few months = no more monitor.

Samsung said they’d fix it for $45 but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that on a monitor that wasn’t my favorite after using it for 21 months. While I made up my mind on what to do, I borrowed my parents’ baby monitor leftover from my brother who is now 25 years old. Obviously it doesn’t have video abilities, but at least with the audio I could tell if Jack was awake (as if the thumping on the walls didn’t clue me in).

Apparently two consecutive days of use was all this elderly monitor could take and just like that we were without a monitor again. [However there seemed to be a nostalgic factor to this antique, so instead of throwing it out I gave it back to my parents. They plugged it in and it works again….??]

I told Jack the monitor is broken so when he wakes up he has to yell “Mama!!” Some days he does, other days he just kicks the wall until I come upstairs. Really the monitor is necessary for the beginning of nap time. Is he sleeping? Is he pooping?

Speaking of which, monitors should really have a smell sensor. They are so high-tech these days with wi-fi and video recording and night vision, you’d think someone would have invented a smell sensor so you know when the baby poops. Because inevitably pooping interferes with naps.

Maybe I’ll take my Smell Sensor Baby Monitor* to Shark Tank for a deal. (*Patent pending)

[Anyway…. I had this post written then added a picture and it deleted half the post… rewriting…]

We bought a new monitor that I scored for a great price on Amazon. Turns out it was a great price because it’s not-so-great a monitor. Jeff remarked the video quality wasn’t very good. I thought it was fine. “The crib slats aren’t supposed to look wavy.” Then we mounted it – two more holes in the wall – Jeff hates holes in the wall – and the night vision doesn’t work at all. So we can see nothing.

Now I’m doing monitor research again, except I have less time than when I was on bed rest and they all seem so expensive. Do I really have to pay another $200 for a video monitor? Don’t we have some kind of old camera laying around that we can hook up to something … ?

Well, this post has been thrilling. I promise to write more interesting things in the future. For now I’ll start engineering my Smell Sensor Baby Monitor* and I’ll take any recommendations you have for a functional video monitor. Since you made it to the end of this post, I will reward you with some pictures.