For 4 1/2 months, I’ve had what almost qualifies as an extra appendage.

It’s this big blue contraption.

One end was velcro’d securely around my baby’s chest and the other — the apnea monitor — was slung over my shoulder.

Along with my baby bag.

My purse.

And the infant car seat carrier containing said infant.

Even when I just wanted to carry Meyer around the house in my arms, this machinery was slung over my shoulder.

Asher even learned to carry it around the house for me when we moved from one room to another.

And oh, the beeping.

The horrid, heinously, obnoxiously loud beeping when it alarmed, which at one point was up to 50 times a day (and night).

It got so bad that I was like a cartoon roadrunner whenever anything in my house beeped.

The dryer finishing a load?

The coffee-maker turning off?

A timer?

My legs took off before I did.

And I was always standing in front of the baby, giving him a little shake to make sure he was breathing properly, before I realized it was just the dishwasher ending its cycle.

Or one of Asher’s toys.

Or a low battery on a fire alarm.

You have no idea how many things in your house beep until that sound can indicate your baby might not be breathing.

But now, in an indication of how well our little preemie is doing, the apnea monitor is no more.

After reading his latest results, our pediatrician cleared us to send this big blue hunk of beeping electronics back from whence it came.

Meyer has been breathing totally normally since June 26.

Not one episode since then.

And 2 months free of episodes means freedom from the apnea monitor.

We are free.

I can now pick my baby up and just haul his fat little ass around the house in my arms.

When I need to go somewhere, I can just be the usual kind of pack mule every mother of a baby is.

Instead of the kind that has a curious, beeping blue box slung over her shoulder.

It’s big news around the Fleet house.

Giant.

Huge.

Between the sudden, successful starting of the kindergarten, the baby rolling over for the first time one week ago, and the end of the apnea monitor, it feels like a sea change around here.

And it’s so welcome.

It’s been a long, long 7 months.

We still having a feeding tube to get rid of.

But we’re starting to see the proverbial light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

And today’s news confirms that things are heading in the right direction.

Big, big news.

Giant.

Huge.