Part I
I have a nephew Nicholas, who now is about two months old, but was just five weeks old when I met him. My sister Ruth came from Indy for a week with him, her husband Vince was only able to come for the weekend. I babysat him about half a dozen times (like when Ruth was drying her hair), but for no more than 10 minutes each time because whenever I was watching him, Mom would swoop in and take him away. Granted, usually he was screaming at me (babies just don't seem to like me), but Mom has turned into a fervent grandma. Apparently, when my sister was born my mom had never held a baby in her life and her mom flew in from South Africa to help out. Many of my mother's friends told me that same story. I guess this is part of grandparenting. Anyway, here is Nicholas...
Part IIOn part of being home that I didn't miss was the daily round of "Wake the Kid." The Kid is my 23-year-old brother, David. He has some problems waking up and getting to work in the morning. He usually makes it there just in time, or within 5 minutes. But four mornings a week someone needs to wake him up with a combination of requests, orders, threats, and the occasional tearing the sheets off the bed.
I don't know how my parents manage. It's like playing a game in which you know that even if you win, you loose. And the most ironic fact is that once he is out of bed, if you have a conversation with him, he will acknowledge that he needs the help getting up and wouldn't be able to live on his own right now and appreciates what my parents do. But you wouldn't know that 20 minutes before he needs to leave the house, with one alarm clock playing hava nagila, the other, Clocky, spinning around the room, plus his blackberry buzzing, and him grumbling in front of a well stocked closet, "I have nothing to wear."
Part III
Connie (my former roommate) and Greg (former coworker) also have a baby, six month old Keira. Basically my vacation was a crash course in babies. While Nicholas still spends the majority of his day sleeping and is still figuring out how to lift his head, Keira is a playful baby who likes sucking on fingers (hers and other peoples) and toes (just her own). She also likes museums, so Connie and I took her to the Field Museum and the Art Institute where she got lots of compliments for being so cute and well behaved. Granted, she slept through the Monets and cried when she saw the stuffed buffalo. But Sue didn't seem to even faze her (Sue is a T. Rex, for those of you who haven't seen her yet).
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