(no subject)
Last Sunday Nathan and I were babysitting Thomas Bickle.
http://thomasbickle.blogspot.com/
Sarah had told us that he was sleeping and that he would probably just sleep, she did not expect him to wake up. No big right? We will just sit here and watch our Square Pegs DVDs and read your Instyle magazine. Awesome. This is what we were doing at home (except I don’t have Instyle, so that’s a bonus!).
So they leave to go to the pub to play pool. And we sit. And read. And watch. And…
“OMG, did you hear that?”
“Yeah…”
*pauses movie*
“Oh man. He awake”
“You better go check”
It was at this point and not before that it struck me, yes, I have babysat a thousand times, for a hundred babies. But not since I was 20. I’m 32. So it’s been a while. The ONLY kids I babysit anymore are my sisters and that’s TOTALLY different because they know me, and I know THEM, and so we understand each other, and the rules, and which ones Aunt Erin is cool with you breaking. But this was Thomas, and I did not know the rules of Thomas. So. I was nervous.
I go back to Thomas’ bedroom and open the door. And he just sort of stands there in the doorway swaying, and looking drunk (which I assume he was, both with sleep and his medication). So I said “Hi Thomas, are you thirsty?” and gave him a sippy cup of water (because Sarah had said if he wakes up, he probably just wants some water) and he took it, and drank. A lot. And then swayed some more. And stared at me. I said “Are you ready to lay back down?” and he just swayed. I could not decide if he was tired or terrified. But I picked him up, and put him in bed. He looked a little nervous maybe. So I read him a couple books. I’m good at that. I do voices and I don’t turn the book away so you can see all the awesome drawings.
And then I said “OK, I am going to turn the light out and go to the living room now, you OK?” and he just stared at me. So I did.
And I sat there and waited. And nothing. So OK, so he went back to sleep, yeah?
No.
Twenty minutes later, he knocks on his door. And I go open it. And he sticks his tiny hand up for me to take, and when I do, he leads me to the living room. He sees Nathan in there and greats him with an enthusiastic “Hey!” and then picks up the baby basketball and begins playing baby hoops. He gathers Nathan to play too. He plays for a while. And Nathan and I are sort of giggling because, well, he’s really cute, but also we had no idea what the rule was on this. Is he allowd to get up? I had no idea.
So we played basketball. And cars, and we watched Blues Clues (He does a dance when Steve does, hand motions and all, it is TO DIE FOR it is so cute, and he said “again!” and couple times, so we rewound it). And we played blocks, and tickle, and we made some VERY IMPORTANT CALLS on our phones.
It was super happy fun times. He was in such a good mood, and we were so happy to play with him.
We did text his parents to tell them he was awake, and I did call teekaykay at some point because he was using baby sign language and I don’t know baby sign language (neither does teekaykay it turns out) but over all it was a really good time, and I am super glad he woke up.
When we were leaving he was saying good bye. For a while. Sarah explained this would go on until AFTER we shut the door behind us. So we went. It was awesome. I’d totally love to do it again.