Hack Parents

I love me some ParentHacks, and ever since I read about the "cell phone as baby monitor" hack I have wanted to try it. I even tried to get Shelli and Narda to use it when they were visiting (I can't remember - did I succeed?). But I never got to try it myself. Trouble was, you need two cells that can be speakerphones, and my archaic but much loved Samsung i500 did not have that capacity. Well, the ole i500 died this week, and I was dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era and now have a phone we call the Phazr (it's a Razr knockoff, which I didn't realize when buying it over the web). The Phazr has a speakerphone, so at the first possible opportunity, Cait and I (ok, *I*, with Cait's phone and her eye-rolling agreement) tried the phone monitor.

Natalie fell asleep in the car after refusing a morning nap, and she REALLY needed the sleep. We were supposed to go out to lunch with a friend, but changed our plans to a carside picnic in Rock Creek Park so Natalie could keep sleeping. The phones were set up with much excitement and we settled ourselves at a picnic table a short distance from the car. Our chatting and laughter were cut short after only a couple of minutes when Natalie woke up. As Cait went to get her out of the carseat, she realized we'd missed one critical step of the hack:

MUTE the phone on the parent end.