The text message popped up on my phone just after midnight.
T was trying to fall asleep in our bedroom and I was on the couch in the living room. The Cubs and Rockies had just gone into extra innings in their win-or-go-home playoff game and I didn’t want to disturb my exhausted wife by reacting to key pitches or controversial calls. I was exhausted too, of course; caffeine only works for so long and my energy stores had already been low after a frustrating day at work. Sports fandom being what it is, though, I was determined to see the game through for as long as I could keep my eyes open.
I had been alone for maybe ten minutes when the soft glow of my cell phone caught my eye. I picked it up, expecting to see another message from my friend with whom I’d been texting during the game, but it wasn’t from him. It was from T.
“One of them is coughing,” she wrote. We keep the parent unit of our Safety 1st baby monitor in our bedroom, which meant that she heard the sound before I did.
Oh no, I thought, as I felt my shoulders tighten. Children coughing is never a good sign but it’s even less so late at night. Plus, our kids were just sick two weeks ago and then S was sick again last week. Her second round even warranted nebulizer treatments to boost her oxygen levels. But she had just gotten the “all-clear” from the doctor the day before, so the idea that she might be sick again was concerning, to say the least.
I was going to get up to check on S but then I had another thought. I didn’t want to come into her room if she wasn’t really awake. Coughing through sleep is tough for kids and puts parents on edge, but I didn’t want to take the chance of waking her fully if she was going to stay asleep on her own.
I picked my phone back up and opened the Safety 1st app that was connected to our monitor and the camera in the kids’ room. The view of the dark bedroom opened immediately and I could see S moving around in her crib. She let out another cough and then lay still. I watched for another moment or two to make sure she didn’t start up again and then put the phone back down. I told T that S had been coughing but that she had not woken up.
The game continued into the night, gradually eating away at both the amount of sleep I’d be able to get that night and my patience with my beloved Cubs, who had somehow forgotten how to hit a baseball from mid-September on. But, as much as I was focusing my energy on willing my team to put men on base and to lay off pitches out of the strike zone, I kept checking the camera screen on the Safety 1st app on my phone. The game was important, but not as much as making sure my kids were still sleeping peacefully.
The game finally ended around 1:00 AM. The Rockies had won, 2-1, in thirteen innings, ending the Cubs’ season. Chicago’s offense had gone as silent as my sleeping children and it cost them the game and their World Series hopes. I lay down in bed and finally surrendered the battle to keep my eyelids open. A stray thought passed through my half-conscious mind about the Cubs owners using a Safety 1st monitor to keep the Cubs bats safe and well-rested for next season.
I smiled at the slight comfort as sleep took over.
I was not compensated financially for this post, but my family did receive a free Safety 1st WiFi baby monitor. As always, the opinions included here are fully my own.
For more information about the monitor, including its WiFi capabilities, the ability to see what the camera sees from your smart phone (example above) and the parent sound unit, please see the photos below or visit the Safety 1st website.
