Babysitting

Today I babysat for the first time in a lonnnnng time, and I gotta be honest, I was a teeny bit worried about how I'd handle two babies, especially when one of those babies is my rambunctious little banana. I've already written about how I think mothers of twins are like gods to me in their capabilities.  Kylie is only 3 months older than Hannah so I was anticipating that it would be like having twins for a couple hours.   There are two choices with that: synchronize their schedules or stagger them.  Since Kylie's morning nap time is usually about an hour after Hannah's, I figured sticking with staggering would be easiest.

Hannah helped me stagger by randomly waking up waaaaay earlier than usual (before 6:00, probably because Eric's alarm went off at 5:30), and this time, rather than groaning, I was relieved.  The idea of feeding them both breakfast at the same time was freaking me out, especially since I usually eat whenever Hannah does.  It was a moot point though; I had Hannah fed and playing quietly on the couch when Kylie got there a little before 8:00. After a couple more minutes on the couch, I plopped Kylie into the high chair to eat her breakfast and plopped Hannah on my lap.  Of course, my aggressive and hyperactive little bitty kept trying to monkey her way over the tray to grab Kylie's food and hands.  To keep her busy, I pulled my trump card: bread.  That gave Kylie a couple of minutes to eat in peace and absorb her surroundings.

It was about this time that I felt an overwhelming need to pee (I drink 32 oz. of water first thing every morning and then a cup of tea so I'm in and out of the bathroom a lot in the morning).  I brainstormed a number of scenarios: leave Kylie strapped into the high chair, take Hannah with me, sprint to the bathroom and back and hope Kylie doesn't freak out in the meantime?  Leave Kylie in the chair, put Hannah in the Jeep, and sprint to the bathroom (that way they are at least together)? Neither of those sounded good, so I checked the clock: 8:15. MC was still home. Maybe she could pop over for a minute and stare at the bitties while I ran to the bathroom.  No answer.  Sigh.  Solution: Man up and hold it. When Kylie finished her breakfast, I put a baby on each hip, and raced up the stairs to the bathroom.  The two played nicely in Hannah's room while I did my business.

Up next: Hannah's nap time. It is a bit of an understatement to say that Hannah can be a bit difficult when it comes to sleeping, not always, but often.  She'd pretty much rather do anything other than sleep and will scream her rump off to make sure you understand that fact.  I worried that having Kylie in the room, awake, would make Hannah even madder, but nope!  I changed Hannah, drew the blinds, laid her down, picked Kylie up, and left.  Hannah yelled, but only for about 30 seconds.  WHEW!!! So far, so good.

The other thing I worried about was how to make sure that both girls were comfortable with the situation.  I haven't really spent a lot of time with Kylie and she's never been over here to play so I worried that she'd be uncomfortable and wanted to make sure I spent some time bonding with her.  At the same time,  Hannah has never had to share me before so I wanted to make sure she didn't get upset about that.  The fact that their nap times are staggered made this super easy.  Kylie and I played on the couch and read books for the next 45 minutes, and then I took her upstairs to our room where I had the playpen set up to read books for another 15 minutes to get her familiar with the room; I was worried that she'd be scared in a strange place. (Yes, I did a lot of unnecessary worrying.) At 10:00 I laid her down but she fussed, and I felt bad, so I picked her up and bounced her around the room humming, and then a crazy thing happened, she fell asleep within minutes.  It's been YEARS since I have successfully rocked a baby to sleep in minutes...Mine fights sleep for all its worth.

Hannah woke up at 10:30 and had plenty of time to linger on the boob which she did for waaaay longer than usual.   We were were halfway through lunch when Kylie woke up at 11:40, and Adrienne, Kylies' mom, showed up at 12:00, which means the girls didn't really get to have much playtime which means I didn't get to snap any cute pics of them playing together to post here.  Bummer.

So other than the fact that trekking up and down the stairs with a baby on each hip would probably get exhausting after a while, babysitting was a piece of cake!!!  Of course it helps that Kylie is sooooo laid back and easy. Man, her and Hannah are totally different babies!