Adventures in babysitting

Fred and I played host today to a preschooler and newborn baby while their parents dealt with a minor medical emergency. I'm fine with preschoolers--I dig out the crayons and paper and the box of Beanie Babies, and I peel oranges, and I can keep up my end of the conversation no problem at all. Babies, however, terrify and mystify me. Always have, always will.

You would think I would gotten over this, having produced 2 babies of my own, but no, they terrified and mystified me, too. We have some video footage of me changing Mike's diaper when he was a newborn. By "changing his diaper," I mean "holding one of his feet while Fred did the dirty work."

Today for the most part, Fred and I divided the job so that I had the preschooler-related tasks, while he tended to the baby. It's not that he was all that anxious to handle the baby; it's more that I was cowering in the kitchen, pretending to be terribly busy.

Once Fred had gotten the baby to sleep, he went out to rake leaves, leaving me all alone with both little ones. One thing about babies though, they always wake up, and this one was no exception. I managed to get her out of the carrier on my own (without her head falling off, which is what I really worry about with babies). Then I sat in the living room and held her while she drank a bottle and while her big sister and I watched us some Disney channel.

After a few hours, their parents came back and got them, and nobody was the worse for having passed the afternoon in our care. I, however, needed a nap.