I don't mean, "oh the baby is crying, but she just needs to cry herself to sleep, so I'm shutting off the monitor". No, I mean, we shut off the monitor.
Finished. Done. Game over. Race is won. Bell has sounded. Lights out. Adios. Cow's done gone home. Cookie jar is empty. Over. Finished. Put a fork in it. The baby monitor is off.
We've taken down the crib. We've put away the bibs. We packed away the baby toys. We've taken down the baby gates. But, the monitor? That was the last thing. The last thing that reminded me I had a baby in the house. I had someone that might need me, at any minute, to help them. Someone that might all of the sudden realize she needed her mommy and I, her mommy, would hear that sudden thought and come running.
It's gone. Gone with it is the heavy breathing that would lull me to sleep. Gone with it is the panic in the middle of the night when that cry would jerk me out of sleep. Gone with it is the pain in my heart when I would turn down the volume and watch the lights race to the top as my baby wailed away, trying to learn to "put herself to sleep". Gone with it is the security that not one moment of my baby's life is outside of my reach.
Here now, is the reality. The reality that my baby is growing. That my baby is, at times, outside of my reach. The reality that my baby doesn't need me to come running when she coughs, or sneezes, or even cries.
Here now is the reality that my baby gets up, throws open her door, stomps out into the hallway, and yells at the top of her lungs, "Mom!" at 4:00 in the morning...... how do I turn that down!!
