I've been meaning to write about something that happened almost a year ago, involving Molly. I almost decided to just keep these events to myself but I decided it was important enough of an event to share.
I use a video monitor in Molly's room. The best place to get a good view of her crib was on the wall, over the head of her crib. The camera itself was quite high, so I never worried about Molly being able to tear it off the wall. The adapter wire to plug in for power was more of a concern to me. I covered the wire with industrial packing tape from under the camera, all the way to the plug in the wall, under the crib. It seemed to be a good installation. Molly never seemed to even notice the camera, nor the wire.
At around 8 months, I noticed that Molly was starting to try to pick at the packing tape but wasn't successful at lifting any part of it. A string of colds ran through the house and I had humidifiers running in the kids' rooms. I think this was the cause for future danger.
I never really paid a whole lot of attention to the video monitor. I used it to make sure that Molly fell asleep for naptime and then used it for sound to make sure she stayed asleep or listened for when she woke and wanted to get out of her crib. There's usually a lot going on in the house, even during naptime, so I normally keep the sound up pretty high. When Molly was around 9 months, I put her down for her nap as usual and came into the livingroom to turn on the monitor. I didn't realize it at the time, but the sound had been turned down. Not much was going on that day, so I ended up sitting on the couch near the monitor, about to watch some tv. I began to notice the lights flashing on the monitor, signaling that there was noise coming from Molly's room. At first I thought it was static, but then I realized that the sound was down. I turned up the volume to hear a lot of scratching noises. I pressed the button to see video in the room but it was blank. I ran down the hall to Molly's room.
When I opened the door to Molly's room I first noticed that she was standing but at an awkward angle. She wasn't making any noise and had a strange expression on her face. I then saw that the wire to the video was completely removed from the wall and WRAPPED AROUND MOLLY'S NECK. I ran to Molly and unwound the wire from her neck. She was scared but her coloring looked OK. She had a bright red line around the front of her neck, but otherwise was OK. I figured that she had been playing with the wire for a little while, and probably just got wound up in it shortly before I came to her room.
I thought that I had been cautious when setting up the video camera, but not enough. The humidifier had steamed the tape to make it much less adhesive. Molly was getting older and more curious. A compilation of events leading to a horrible conclusion. I try not to think about what if's but sometimes it's hard. I can't imagine a day without my Moll Moll.
The video camera is still in Molly's room, but now it's across from her crib with the adapter wire far from her reach, FOREVER.
