Liam's baby monitor has been on the fritz lately. Yeah, you heard me... Liam's baby monitor. The Liam that is about to turn 6 has a baby monitor. In my defense, he has nightmares and his room is downstairs and on the other side of the house.
For years now, the monitor has been usable only while on its charging base. It's long since lost it's ability to travel 90 feet away. Now a dust mite crawling between the sensors can get it started beeping with its red light. I'm assuming that is what is happening because every night the monitor beeps at us from my dresser, sometimes just after we've fallen asleep, often in the middle of the night when we're never quite sure what woke us up... Yet every night Bill or I go into Liam's room and we click that monitor to make sure it's working from his end.
Time to get rid of the monitor, right? Wrong. I can think of a hundred reasons why I need Liam's monitor on each night. There are the nightmares, true, but also what if his baseboard heater catches fire from a rogue Lego? What if someone breaks into the house? What if he falls off his bed? What if he gets sick? Joshua still has his monitor, why wouldn't we need one for Liam too? What if either of them needs us in the middle of the night?
I'm not overprotective, really. When everyone's awake, I see no real need for a monitor now that both kids are a little older. In fact, I've been known to turn off their monitors after we put them down for bedtime (sometimes this is just necessary. It's hard to hear Desperate Housewives when Joshua is screaming, "Me want juice. Me no want water. Me want juice. Me no want water. Me want juice....").
I'm also not overly sentimental about my kids growing up. Really, I actually enjoy having conversations with Liam now and I think watching Joshua becoming a real grown up kid is kind of cool too. Babies can't break out into spontaneous mosh pits in the living room or talk about farts and poops at the dinner table. They're not really as fun as having big kids. I wasn't even upset when Liam boarded the bus for Kindergarten (Hello? Free day-time care with the added benefit of learning?)! Believe me, I won't be sad when I can get rid of Josh's Diaper Champ either. So it's not emotions that keep me holding onto that monitor... at least not the emotion of being overly sentimental.
It's clear that I will not be parting with Liam's monitor anytime soon. But when I think about it, I'm pretty sure he shouldn't have a monitor in his room when he's an 8 year old. So sometime between not yet and 8. That seems specific enough. Until then I think I'll just cope with the beeping. On second thought, I think instead of getting rid of the monitor, I will just disguise it. I won't keep it on all the time, just sometimes... I wonder how many of us had hidden baby monitors in our rooms when we were teens. Ok, that's a really creepy thought. I think it'll have to go sometime... but not until he's 8.
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