Category Archives: Babysitting

Babies, Babysitting, children, coffee, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, Insomnia, life, parenting

Fun Never Sleeps

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It’s every grandparent’s dream!

“Would y’all mind keeping the boys for the weekend while we go out of town?”

YES!

And so it came to be that two male fledglings stayed with PawPaw and JJ last weekend.  

Easton ages in for the Terrible Twos at 2 years 9 months, and Asher times in as a Light Weight at only 3 1/2 months old.

Janet likes babies, but they intimidate me like I was a lost kitten in the dog pound.  I like it when they can say what’s wrong, like Easton, so it was perfect! 

When my daughter and son-in-law dropped them off, they were semi-apologetic.  

“Hey! We’re no rookies! Besides, they’re both as laid back of kids that there are.” 

My son-in-law shook his head.  My daughter raised an eye brow with a smile, “Well, wait till nighttime”.

Psft! We got this!

Nighttime came.  

Easton laid down on a pallet in our room and was out like a light!    

Asher was in a pack-n-play.  He fell asleep right on que after his 8:30 PM bottle. 

Good grief! How much easier can it get? 

However, we should’ve gone to bed then, right then!  Instead, we laid down about 10:00ish.  

Continue reading Fun Never Sleeps →

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Babysitting, children, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, Insomnia, Laughter, Sleep

Nightmare on Tahoe Street 😂

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We jumped at the chance to help take care of three grandkids while their mom and dad did duties at a church camp retreat! It’s what grandparents do.

We jump in and help, you know? All for one, and one for all! Do it for the team!

Oh, did I mention it was at Lake Tahoe? In a cabin setting? Second story waterfront view? Alright. Well, SURE!  Happy, happy, happy to fly from Texas to help!!

Our job was to help entertain the three munchkins, ages 6, 4, and 2, even though they all answer “and a half” when asked their age.

Life is odd like that. By the time you’re my age, you round down. In fact, birthdays are now Pretend To Have Ten Fewer Candles on the Cake Day!  Besides, it saves the environment from candle pollution and the smoke detector doesn’t go off!

Anyway, at the retreat center, Janet and I discovered there was no adjoining door between the rooms. In fact, there were three queen size beds in our room….with only one bed in Mommy and Daddy’s room.

Uh, huh! That’s just stinkin’ parental brilliance right there! Why didn’t I think of that as a young parent?!
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Babysitting, Cats, children, Family, grace, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, life, story

Carl, The Species Confused Cat!

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Carl knows better. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows.  Carl and I have a working relationship, but most of the work’s on my part.  Even how Carl got here was an arm-twisting escapade (read here.)  He does nothing, absolutely nothing!!

Really, the worthless feline folly should be dragging up mice, gophers or little dead snakes.  He doesn’t.  Half the time the flea bag is asleep flat on his back by the garage door. The other half he sits under a shade tree near the barbed wire fence watching the neighbor’s horses.

It’s a one-sided relationship! He can be totally out of sight, but if he hears his stainless steel feed bowl slide on the floor or the crinkle of the cat food bag, he comes running like he’s Lion King and I’m two days late.

I could live with it if every once in a while if he would do something for us, his “people”, as Carl likes to think, that would justify his meager existence.  As it is, I’m going to have to renegotiate a month to month deal, maybe charge him cat rent, something.

Trouble is, Carl doesn’t know his place!  In his messed up wheel of fortune mind, he’s Cat Sajack and I’m Vanna White! Continue reading Carl, The Species Confused Cat! →

Babysitting, children, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, story

Nightmare at Bedtime

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Our granddaughter, Claira, is 15 months old. She was spending the night with us, along with her brother and sister, ages 5 and 3.

Claira has a sweet, happy personality, but she’s also semi-strong willed.

She was all rainbows and unicorns! She even had them on her pajamas, but then it was…bedtime.  Claira had been laughing, cooing, and cawing until JJ (my wife Janet) and PawPaw (me) had the audacity to lay her down in the baby bed.

As JJ carefully laid her down, Claira immediately let it be known that she thought we were completely incompetent to try to put her down to go to sleep!

We talked softly to her, patted her back, patted her diapered bottom, rubbed her head, nothing at all made her happy.

She spit out her pacifier like it was a poisonous trick, pulled off the baby blanket, and screamed even louder when the door closed. We figured she’d quickly settle in for a long night of restful sleep.

Nope!

The unicorns turned red and grew multiple horns, and the rainbows became a Class 5 hurricane.  She started to wail, not whimper, not cry, wail.

Continue reading Nightmare at Bedtime →