Curse you, baby monitor

I deliberately did not register for a baby monitor before Sweets was born. Come on, our house is like 1300 square feet, and his bedroom is just across the wall from ours. We can pretty much hear him any time, anywhere, especially if he really needs us. But what's been nice about not having a monitor is that I don't have to listen to the tiny sleep noises he makes...the noises that if I could hear them, would make my inner dialogue go something like this: Was that...? No! NO! He's only been sleeping 13 minutes. He's not waking up already is he? No. He's not. Wait...yes, that was definitely a wake-up noise. Or maybe it was a fart. Just ignore it. He'll go back to sleep. If he was even awake in the first place. Maybe the dog woke him up. OMG that dog is going to live on the porch for the rest of his life. 

I'm only partially kidding. Nevermind, really, I'm not kidding at all. These are the kinds of thoughts that tormented me for the better part of my baby's first year. But as you know, Sweetie Pea has been sleeping exponentially better lately. With the weather improving as well, I decided that nap time/right after he goes to bed for the night would be a great time to capitalize on getting some work done in the yard. Since I couldn't make my peace with leaving him sleeping alone in the house, I picked up a very basic baby monitor this week. Just as a sidenote: the baby monitor section is completely overwhelming. They have monitors that tell you the temperature of the nursery, monitors that vibrate, light up, and make noise, monitors that have video feeds, monitors that allow you to talk to baby, monitors that do your taxes for you. After a head-spinning 20 minutes of reading the back of the boxes, I settled on this one:

Fisher Price Surround Sounds and Lights Baby Monitor

It sounds hi-tech but it was pretty much the most basic option they had. One receiver. Two channels. Sounds from the nursery come through as both noise and lights over the receiver. I gave it it's first go the other day while Sweets was napping. Admittedly, I did not intend to do yard work, I intended to sit on the porch with my book and a glass of iced tea. But it didn't go quite as planned. I ended up reading the same paragraph over and over because I could hear every rustle, every peep, every time my child batted an eyelash. And it totally stressed me out. I'm not used to hearing all those sleep noises. Just to make myself feel better, I walked into the house without the monitor and confirmed that no, standing in the living room, I did not hear those noises. And it made me so grateful that I didn't have one say, on my nightstand all this time.

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