Oh My!

I still use a baby monitor in Miss Molly's room and usually, I unplug the end of the monitor that is in our bedroom during the day. Well, today I must have forgotten and left it plugged in and forgot about it. We had been out running around, came back in, do the usual just-got-home rituals, etc. I was in our room changing Molly's diaper on our bed when I heard a baby crying on our monitor. Hmmmm. Molly's with me. Matthew's in the play room. I know I didn't have another baby and it's crying in Molly's room, so what's the deal? Naturally, I listen and realize it's a toddler about 18 months old. I am hearing another family on our baby monitor. For a few minutes, I listen because this kid is having a serious fit (no judgement on my part because we have had our share of fits in this house, especially the past 3 days). Matthew hears and comes in to listen, too. Child continues screaming, crying fit. Another minute goes by, and I hear the mom go into his room and say "Oh, did you wake up?" Child screams, cries. Now, I'm not just sitting there eavesdropping. I am piddling around, cleaning a few things here and there so it doesn't look like I'm eavesdropping to Matthew and Molly. Child continues screaming, crying fit. At this point, I'm just curious to see how a fellow Mother handles this situation. I'm impressed that she's remained calm up to this point. Want to know what she does? She starts vaccuuming. Yep. She tunes him out and now has a clean house. A few minutes go by and Dad gets home, goes in and all is right with the world. I turned the monitor off . . . and then a thought occured to me . . . if I could hear that family, that must mean that family could hear us??? Oh no. Oh no no no. Not that I'm a bad mom or anything, but there are definitely moments that I lose it--I might have been known to yell about a seemingly insignificant issue (like when Matthew squeezed the baby powder bottle all over the kitchen on Tuesday as we were getting ready to leave the house, causing the majority of our kitchen to be whitish gray.) It's not too often that I lose it, but a stranger listening to our family life is an odd thought. There are also moments that I have as a mom that I would be proud for another family to overhear. But let's face it, those moments are usually quiet and sweet. Not too much a monitor might pick up. It's the other moments, the icky ones, that my monitor could be shouting out to the world. I'll know it's happened if other families avoid us at the park when they hear my voice. Hee hee.