Frustrations engendered by a coughing child

[celticdragonfly]

I was up in the wee hours with Jamie this morning, as he was coughing badly and calling for "Mamama!"

On the plus side, he was using a bunch of words through all this. Mama, water, all done, bye.

Got him water, got him changed. Realized neither the humidifier or the steamer was going, and the heat was kinda high - he's coughing because the warm dry air is drying out his throat too much. Poor baby. Got Karl to help give him some ibuprofen. Tried to get Karl's help with the steamer, which wasn't working for me at first, could not. This morning he was asking "how'd Jamie end up in bed with us?" Um, your idea, dear. I love him, but he's such a zombie at that hour, which is a pity when I was dealing with an engineering problem. Environment is making child sick, fix environment, gah this one tool is not working.

After it finally was working, and both humidifier in the bathroom and steamer on the bedside table were going, I laid there, unable to get back to sleep, thinking in frustration about how I'd *like* to fix things.

Why is it that people who build houses only put electric plugs right down by the floor? It's dumb. I would like to put a humidifer in Jamie's room. We have a great big shelf up, that if we cleaned it off would be big enough. But it would have to be plugged in at floor level. I can get babyproofing gadgets that would prevent him pulling the plug out, so he couldn't turn it off or electrocute himself - but nothing I can do is going to prevent him being able to use the cord to pull the thing down off the shelf onto his head. Not a good idea for a room where he is unsupervised.

If I was building a house, I'd put some plugs in at shoulder height or higher - both for babyproofing and for hanging lamps and such. It wouldn't be that hard.

For that matter, why the hell don't they design humidifiers in with the central heating? [1] Just need a water reservoir right under the path of the fan. It could refill itself from the household water supply. Given the grunge at the bottom of the steamer after most of the water is gone (man, makes me grateful we're drinking from faucets with water purifiers on them), it would need to get cleaned out regularly. But that could get automated easily enough - I'd use a lot of design elements from a toilet. You could just have this thing run while the heat is going, or have a humidity sensor that would set it off, the equivalent of a thermostat. It would not be that hard. And it would be a big improvement. We'd be healthier and I would have gotten more sleep last night.


[1] Yes, I know bkseiver in Louisiana is likely to be horrified by this. Trust me, here in Texas it'd be a fine idea.

Comments

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Interior wall, and yes, there's an electrical outlet directly below the shelf.

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[tmc4242.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't be that hard to add an outlet at the shelf then. The only really tough part might be cutting a hole in or removing the existing outlet box. Beyond that, it's pretty simple - unless the electrician who wired the place did something really unorthodox. That could present challenges. Always that caveat...

I have a 2 meter long 3/4" drill bit that works wonders for getting thru the fire stops inside the wall. You guys are welcome to borrow it. If you can wait until ( conceivably ) after ConDFW for me to have an open weekend, I can coach and/or assist too.

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

We do not have the training or skills to do electrical rewiring.

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[tmc4242.livejournal.com]

I've done several outlets like this over the years.

You're both clever. You could be taught. :-)

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[selenite.livejournal.com]

And we're willing to learn . . . but when the failure mode is "faulty wiring burns down house" we'd rather not be self-taught.

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[tmc4242.livejournal.com]

Where's your sense of adventure ? ;-)

The outlet end is generally the easy part. I personally at least hesitate and consult references/experts before venturing far into the breaker panel.

LOTS of magic smoke in there...

As noted, I'll be glad to help out, but it might be early March before I can get there.

Re: how to keep the child from grabbing the cord

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

I can't argue with that logic. It's one thing to do "learn as you go" self-taught carpentry, or even plumbing. The consequences of mistakes range from aesthetic to inconvenient (for suitable definitions of "inconvenient" in the case of supply-side plumbing errors *g*). But "learn as you go" self-taught electricity is considerably more fraught.