Babysitting, or, How I Learned to Grow Extra Arms

In the span of three hours, I grew two extra arms. Of course I did, because there was one more child in my care. Every mother knows that appendages grow exponentially with each new child. In my case, the situation was only temporary, but provided a reality check of how mamas manage to do it all.

My sister and her husband had their first evening out since the birth of their little boy mid-November. A Blazer's game was scheduled, and since they live quite near the Coliseum, they went for it and left Auntie in charge.

Little T seems to be phasing out of his colicky stage; life is gettng easier, and since he takes a bottle, all should have been well. And it was, for the most part. The difficulty arose when 4 year-old Bear, discovering my distraction of taking care of a baby, pulled every attention-grabbing trick in the proverbial book.

He ate nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches yesterday, bugged the dog, crawled all over the top of me, and generally was a help and nusiance.

Lest you think I was angry at Bear, rest assured I had anticipated this sort of behavior, and found the above box for his playing pleasure. It has been a Jedi castle, a hiding place, and convenient storage location for a certain blue blanket.

I managed to make said PB&J, unload the dishwasher, go to the bathroom, and get Bear into his pajamas. Not to mention burp and feed a baby who decided he DID NOT want that bottle.

Those Arms came in so handy...