My car has this really cool feature that allows you to sync a cell phone to it using Bluetooth. When you receive a phone call while driving, it turns the stereo down, pumps the phone call audio over the car's speakers, and lets you talk via a built-in speakerphone. More and more cars are offering this feature these days but this was quite cutting edge when we bought it. One of the things I've noticed is that, if I walk more than 30 feet away from the car, my cellphone will display a message saying "Bluetooth signal lost" indicating that the car and the phone have become disconnected from each other because they're too far away.
Madeleine has a Bluetooth connection to Hannah.
One of the things I've learned in my six whole weeks of being a parent is that babies are a lot more aware of their surroundings than we give them credit for. If Hannah goes more than 30 feet away from her and I'm still around, an internal alarm clock goes off in precisely 10 minutes. This internal alarm clock wakes her up and also sends her subliminal messages to:
- Get really, really hungry
- Fake poohs to encourage daddy to inspect for dirty diapers multiple times
- Cry inconsolably despite feedings, changings, burpings, and every other form of human stimulation
The only way to hit Madeleine's reset button is for Hannah to come home. So, for the 2-4 hours that I am typically with her, I get the full-on effect of The Monster. For the uninitiated, The Monster is the term we use (Hannah came up with it) for the little one when she fusses and cries despite us exhausting literally every trick in the book 3-4 times over a course of multiple hours. In Madeleine's defense, The Monster is not a daily sighting around our house - usually just 2-3 times per week. But in my paranoia, I have come to believe that those times universally happen when Hannah leaves me alone with her.
Today, The Monster is out in full force. Ten minutes after Hannah left, the sleeper awoke. I had a bottle handy. Three sips later, she was asleep again. Five minutes later, she's up again. Try more of the bottle - she pushes it away. She starts doing the leg stretch and red face that she likes to do when attempting a Number Two. I check the diaper. Nothing. Two more minutes on the bottle and she's back to sleep. I try to put her down. I no sooner pull my hand away than she's up again.
This cycle has literally been repeating itself for three straight hours. During that time, she's easily had her diaper checked 4 times (one change for a small #1) and she's had probably 8 offers of the bottle. She's been burped, held, played with, spoken to, rocked - everything I can do on one leg. Nothing is working!
My mom called with an interesting theory - perhaps Madeleine got addicted to the attention she received from a week's worth of grandparental visitors.
That's a good theory. Of course, it could just be that this is one of those days. Today started off on the wrong foot when all 3 smoke detectors in our place went off at the same time shortly after 9:00 AM. To make the experience extra special, they are all literally 5 feet from one another and one of them is in the baby's room, which means that it's further amplified throughout the unit by the baby monitor.
Thankfully, there was no fire and Madeleine didn't join in the shrieking. But, since I am not going to be hopping up on chairs to change lightbulbs or check smoke detector batteries anytime soon, thank goodness Hannah was home. She had to come sprinting out of the shower to pull the detectors off the ceiling wearing just a wet towel.
The smoke detectors going off randomly in our unit is, unfortunately, a regular occurrence. We've certainly set them off ourselves by cooking something a little too earnestly in the kitchen, so we're extra careful about opening windows when we're using a skillet or the broiler. But 9 times out of 10 (and it's literally happened 10 or so times since we moved in here in 2005), they go off without explanation.
It's not the batteries (less than 2 months old and no warning "chirp" beforehand). And the weird thing is that they are 3 different brands of smoke detectors. But something has to be setting them off. Perhaps one is defective and it trips the other two?
So, just what we need - another project around the house!
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