Babysitting

I wrote this piece in January of this year, when my granddaughter Lucia was 18 months old, but neglected to post it until today.

Max called me the first time at 6:30 pm.

“Hi, I don’t have time to talk right now, I’m eating, I’ll call you in a half hour,” I told him.

“I’m with the baby,” he said.

“Oh, I didn’t know you guys had agreed on tonight. How’s it going?”

“OK, but what if she poops. How will I know if she poops?”

The she in question is my granddaughter, Lucia, aka Lulu, and Max’s niece. Lulu’s parents, Jakob and Casey, had asked Max to babysit for the first time a few weeks before so they could go out to dinner, but Lulu had come down with a cold and they canceled. But now, here we were, and Max was babysitting.

I’d already shown him how to change a poopy diaper the last time I’d been down to Albuquerque, where they all live. There were a lot of “Oh gods” and “I really hope she doesn’t poop while I have her” but he said he thought he could do it.

“So how’s it going so far?” I asked.

“It’s OK. She had more macaroni and cheese than I’ve ever seen her eat. Do you think that might make her poop?”

“You never know, but she usually poops earlier in the day. Try not to worry about it.”

“Back to my original question. How will I know if she poops?”

“You’ll know.”

I heard Lulu cry out in the background.

“What happened?”

“She just sat down pretty hard. I’m going to give her a pretzel. She really likes pretzels.”

“OK, just play with her like you always do and she’ll be fine. Jakob and Casey will be home soon if they just went out to dinner.”

“OK.”

“Call me if you need me.”

“OK.”

Lulu loves Max. When he goes over to visit he sits on the floor with her and talks to her like she’s a twenty something (what he is), cracking jokes and discussing political economy. She likes the words and appreciates his tone. He follows her around so she doesn’t hurt herself. She calls him “Maa!” as she can’t quite get the “x” out.

Max calls me again at 8:15.

“She pooped.”

“OK, did you change her?”

“Yeah, and I cleaned her up like you showed me but I’m not sure I really got her clean enough.”

“Was it kind of solid? Then you don’t have to worry that you got it all cleaned up.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know. Maybe I should give her a bath. Then I’d know she’s clean.”

“That’s a great idea. She loves to take baths.”

“How hot should I make the water?”

“Not too hot that she would react negatively to it, but hot enough so that it’s comfortable for her to spend some time in it. She loves to play in the tub.”

“OK, I’m going to put her in the bath.”

“Make sure you never take your eye off her while she’s in there.”

I thought for sure my comment would elicit a sarcastic response, but his anxiety negated that.

“Jakob and Casey will probably be home soon. Call me if you need me.”

The next time he called it was a quarter to nine. He was in the car on his way home.

“Jakob and Casey got there while she was still in the bath, so that was good.”

“So you did fine. Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, if you consider following a little thing around trying to keep her from falling down and cracking her head open fun, then I guess I had a really good time.”

“It’ll be much easier next time.”

“I really don’t think I’m a good babysitter.

“I bet they think you’re an excellent babysitter. Believe me, they’ll be back for you.”

When I spoke with Jakob the next day and told him about the phone calls he laughed and said the bath water was completely tepid but Lulu was having a great time in it anyway. All she could say the rest of the night was “Maa!” “Maa!”

Postscript: He came back, many times.