Ignorance is Bliss

Since before Lauren was born, I have always wanted a portable video monitor versus the sound-only one. Rob was always against it - he thought that all I would do is sit and stare at the monitor while the child was sleeping. The one we have had for the past two years worked out just fine, but as Lauren has gotten older, I wanted to be able to see into her room, especially as the temptation to climb out of her crib might start up. Lucky for us, she has shown no desire to climb out and seems to really love being in there - in fact, she can stay in there until she's five as far as I'm concerned - I know where she is and what she's doing, it's perfect.

With the upcoming arrival of Marissa, though, we knew we had to upgrade the monitor system or not have one in Lauren's room at all, ours was not compatible with extra monitors. Again, I pushed for the video system for each room: I wanted to see in there, darn it! I had to do extensive research and build my case to present to Rob, as anyone who knows him knows I would have to do. This might have been the biggest sell I've ever had to lay out there - he was not on board at all so I was building from the ground on this one. I called the video monitor companies and did online research through testimonials and finally found one that I thought would work great and put the hard sell on him. His response? "Does the camera automatically flip between the rooms? I want one that goes between the rooms automatically." Might have been nice to know on the front end, back to the drawing board. I called the company again and this one was easy: to their knowledge, there isn't one out there that does that. Whew, bullet dodged, it doesn't exist. Without full consent, I went ahead and ordered the system I wanted, I figured I could always send it back if my better half adamantly objected.

Last weekend, Rob grudgingly set the system up in both girls' rooms, so Sunday night was our first time with the video after we put Lauren to bed. Our portable hand-held part has to be manually turned on for video, otherwise it streams sound only. For the record I would like to state that Rob held that monitor, with the video on, for at least a half hour. More surprising than that is the fact that Lauren was obviously great entertainment. With the sound monitor, when it was quiet in her room after we walked out, we assumed that she was asleep and so we could go about our evening. Maybe this night was just a fluke, but she was up playing with her animals and jumping on the mattress and walking back and forth from one end to the other. I think we went back in there to tell her that it was "sleepy time" once each. The brilliant part is, she was quiet the whole time, so if it weren't for the video, we never would have known she was awake. This has gone on every night this week. Most nights she actually appears to fall asleep and then about thirty minutes later, pops up likes it's play time and goes to town, sometimes for up to an hour. All the while, not making a peep. This whole time, we thought she was asleep and that we were parents of the year because our child went down so easily at 7:00 and slept for nearly twelve hours. The moral of the story: ignorance really and truly is bliss!