June 14, 2011

There's an App for That

When AT&T aired their "There's An App For That" iPhone commercial back in 2009, I never thought I'd be grateful that they weren't lying when they said "there's an app for just about anything only on the iPhone". In fact, I never thought much about the ad at all as I didn't own an iPhone - then or now. Fortunately for me, my husband does.

While at the Janeway with Hudson on Sunday night waiting to see the doctor, it came close to feeding time. However, all around the waiting room are large signs saying don't give your child anything to eat or drink until they see a doctor. Uhm, yeah, ok. That might be easier said than done when it comes to a two month old. It's not exactly like you can rationalize with them about it. So I spoke with the triage nurse to see if that applied to us and, of course as my luck would have it, it did. No food for the boy until after the doctor had seen him.

Fingers crossed, I hoped the little man would surprise us and want to eat later than sooner. Again, as my luck would have it, he didn't. He started singing for his supper in the ER waiting room. Oh joy, oh bliss for us and the dozen other people there. I took him to the back of the waiting area to at least distant the others from the noise, swaddled him as that often helps calm him down for a short time and wished we had a vacuum cleaner or radio for static, which also usually calms him down more quickly than anything else. Alas, the Janeway ER doesn't come equipped with vacuums.



ahhh, Kenmore Upright, how do I love thee...
 As I try bouncing and rocking the swaddled wailing child-o-mine, Des says "I'll be right back" and quickly leaves the Janeway waiting room. While I know he hadn't abandoned us - he loves us too much for that - I wondered what on earth was so important that it had to be done that minute. I continued to rock and bounce to settle the boy, when my smarter-than-Einstein husband returned. He remembered that there's an app for just about anything and had gone outside to get phone service and downloaded a white noise app by TM Soft.

Yes, that's right people. There's a white noise app that, when turned up on top volume, serves the same purpose as a vacuum or radio static for our sweet child. It lulls him into a calm state and, luckily for us, that evening it also lulled him to sleep until we saw the doctor. We did the consult and by the end of it Hudson was again crying for his bedtime snack, so we fed him there at the hospital and placed him and the iPhone blaring white noise in his car seat and headed for home. The boy was sound asleep before we left the parking lot.

Thank goodness there's an app for that.

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