Babysitting Sabrina

I'm glad that, for the most part, when one acquires a child it is completely dependent and immobile. I'm also glad that, for the most part, babies who are mobile and enjoy sticking things in their mouths like to come and show you what they are doing first.

"See this book, Auntie Nancy?" and in it goes. And then I make sure it comes back out.

"See this Cheerio I found on your floor, hidden in the depths of an unswept corner?" and in it goes. And I don't bother reaching in to get it.

"See this magnet I pulled off your fridge?" and in it goes. And it's too big to swallow so it stays.

"See this picture frame that I pulled off your TV stand?" and that comes away before it even reaches her mouth.

I suppose I'm also glad that neither Andrew nor I are avid marble players.

Our house really hasn't been babyproofed yet, which is alright because if our baby is like any others I know at around her age, she'll just lie there and if she wants anything will be sure to let us know. Newborns just aren't into exploration very much.

So, after deciding that my house really wasn't all that big and there wasn't that much to explore...and after we pulled the magnets off the the fridge 100 or more times, we headed to the great expanse of the outdoors. There we kicked pine cones, banged on the mailboxes, tripped in the grass a dozen times repeatedly, and tried to climb on every bike we saw. We then got really confused when I said we should go home and tried to climb up every set of stairs in every breezeway. Alas, one of us kept saying that we weren't home yet, making the other one rather upset. Finally we made it to the right house, and I let her upstairs (she kept stopping and looking back at me as if to say, "You're seriously letting me go up the stairs this time?"), only to get distracted by our little neighbour's tricycle. Thankfully, it was so hot outside that being inside sounded better than trying to swipe a bike, even to Sabrina.

When we got home, we had some sandwiches (I knew we kept those phone books for a reason--we've never used them otherwise)


and then played with the magnets while waiting for Uncle Andrew to come home. Sabrina started doing this strange torso swivel when she was walking. I think it's her I'm -a-woman-on-a-mission walk because she doesn't do it all the time.

Uncle Andrew finally came home and straightway commenced teasing Sabrina. She, of course, freaked out and came to complain to me. Uncle Andrew is persistent though, and even though every little girl he's ever met has been mortally afraid of him, within 10 minutes he's their best friend.

In the end, Sabrina found Uncle Andrew a whole lot more fun than Auntie Nancy and just couldn't get enough of him.


This particular "game" was Sabrina's favorite. She kept asking Andrew to do it over and over again (without any words of course, but with a lot of grunting and actions).

Uncle Andrew, can you do that again?

After Uncle Andrew was plum tuckered out, I made him a sandwhich and we tried to coax Sabrina into eating the remainder of hers. She wasn't really interested and instead found so much more joy in smashing it into the table. When I tried to take it away from her, she screamed and threw it against the wall. It stuck. She continued screaming.

She found Auntie Nancy to be much more relaxing (or maybe just more boring) than Uncle Andrew--how she slept through my baby trying to kick her off my belly, I'll never know, but she managed to do it. I only slept for a half hour--but she slept for a good hour and a half or so.


After she woke up from her nap, we headed over to Marquita and Daniel's house to have dinner, and to let Maya and Sabrina have the chance to play. Maya had a little bit of an internal struggle (that lasted until after dinner) before she would let Sabrina play with any of her toys. She had them all in her arms and would take them all away from Sabrina. Sabrina, the more "dominant" twin was not used to having her toys taken away and so she hit Maya (I'm told that we're lucky she didn't bite), which gave Maya a little bit of a shock. They just had a hard time at first.

After dinner though, they got along a lot better. Maya kept wanting to pick up Sabrina (who probably weighs as much as she does) and hug her and kiss her and they were sharing nicely. Maya was upset a little that Sabrina got the sippy cup (meaning that she didn't), but she seemed pretty excited to have a big girl chair at the dinner table instead of having to sit in the high chair.

When it was well past bed time and Sabrina was having trouble keeping her happy face on, we decided it was time to give Sabrina back to her mom--happy that ours will come home smaller and needing slightly less entertaining (at first). It was good practice though!