I can't believe that it's the first day of June already! Up here where the sun is rising at 4 am and setting at 11pm, we're hitting temperatures of 23-28C during the day and still having frost warnings overnight. Crazy times! The smoke is still heavy in the air from all the forest fires in the area, so outdoor activity is still at a minimum despite all the sunshine!
The last couple of weeks have been a great learning experience in our house! I know I mentioned that I started babysitting a 1 year old girl. Two weeks ago was a part-time week, last week turned out to be a 3/4 week because of the holiday and this week is our first full-time week. I must report that X's transition to one little girl in his life has been excellent!
When I first told X about the possibility of babysitting, he wasn't a fan of the idea. He told me it would not make him happy because if it was a baby they would cry all night while he was trying to sleep. When I explained that I would not be keeping her all night he opened up to the idea. Now a couple things to note here; first, no we did not clarify that two babies in October will be here full time, second, I have done childcare before. This is not the first non-family member to hang out with us all day, so I don't know why he thought I'd be keeping her for days and days!
For the last week and a half X has been studiously ignoring the presence of an extra body in the house. He's a 5 year old boy, so obviously she has not been ignoring him, but he quickly became expert at slightly turning his body so she was no longer in his direct line of vision. Pretty funny to watch actually. He was never mean, and always helped when I asked of course, but did his best to pretend she was not there.
The first day I had her before I took X to school she came with us to drop him off. When we were getting out of the car he told me he was old enough now and could cross the street by himself. I explained that even though he is a big boy I am not ready to let him cross any street in this super-busy town alone. Even in a 30k/h school zone. Even with 2 crossing guards. His response? "But Mooo-ooooom. If you bring her all the people in my class and all my friends will think she's ours!" Again, something to note here...I do get a few double takes when I walk down the street with a 5 year-old by my side, a one-year old on my hip, and an obvious baby-belly. X seemed ok when I told him it was alright to tell his friends that mommy was baby-sitting if they asked.
Yesterday we had a break through! After we picked X up from school we decided to take a quick trip downtown to return some library materials and, since it was released yesterday and I've been a super good girl, to pick up the 3rd season of True Blood from Walmart. On the way back we decided to make an ill-fated stop at Tim Horton's. The line-up was not too bad, not out on the road, so just 9 or 10 cars between us and the speaker, but 3 cars away we noticed the "we ran out of steeped tea" signs (my drink of choice these days), and then when we got the the speaker we were told they were also out of Iced Capps (M's choice). Before we got there and while we were waiting in line I realized X had been playing peek-a-boo for 15 minutes! And making sure the water cup and soother and toys were always in easy reach. Because she is still rear-facing he also gave us a minute-by-minute account of her every move. This morning when getting in the car to take X to school he asked if I had her water cup or her soother. He seemed to think it was very irresponsible of me to go on this 5 minute drive without either! too great. She also helped him with his homework this morning! He read his book while she listened and tried to sit in his lap.
All in all, this child-care thing was a great idea! X is going to make a fabulous big brother!!
LOVE IT!!!!!
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