Last night Carly and I babysat for my boss’s twin almost 4-month-old babies and her 5-year-old son. Jesus, that was WORK. I don’t think I’ll be sneering at any mothers in the mall for a good long while. At first she was going to leave all three of them with me and I knew right away I was going to have to call in reinforcements. Carly generously agreed to put aside her Cinco de Mayo plans and come over, which was awesome. I thought the two of us would be enough, but the babies were so needy that she and I couldn’t do anything except attend to them. We didn’t have that fabulous swing contraption that keeps at least one of them happy while you try to placate the other. So we knew there was no way we could prepare bottles, order pizza, find binkies, and keep the prince and princess dry and quiet and also play with the older boy. We summoned Kevin to pick up game-playing, ball-tossing, boy-bonding duties, and he did great.
It was quite a time. Carly had great instincts, which she attested to owning a dog. She was patient and got them calmed down a lot better than I did. I was the one panicking when they were both crying their lungs out, and she’s the one who put them on their blanket and rubbed their tummies and got them quiet again. They never liked what you were doing for more than a few minutes--rock, walk around, lay down, rub head, binky, rub tummy, hold upright--so it was a constant guessing game. It has to be different with your own, because you can tell what they want, right? I hope? Fortunately, every time my boss called they were quiet, and they were both sleeping when she got back.
Anyway, I’m exhausted, my arms are sore, and it’s going to rain all weekend. I plan to sleep until noon tomorrow, as long as I make it through today.
It was quite a time. Carly had great instincts, which she attested to owning a dog. She was patient and got them calmed down a lot better than I did. I was the one panicking when they were both crying their lungs out, and she’s the one who put them on their blanket and rubbed their tummies and got them quiet again. They never liked what you were doing for more than a few minutes--rock, walk around, lay down, rub head, binky, rub tummy, hold upright--so it was a constant guessing game. It has to be different with your own, because you can tell what they want, right? I hope? Fortunately, every time my boss called they were quiet, and they were both sleeping when she got back.
Anyway, I’m exhausted, my arms are sore, and it’s going to rain all weekend. I plan to sleep until noon tomorrow, as long as I make it through today.
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