• adventures in babysitting,  Bug,  movies,  party party

    Rolly Rolly Merbaby

    Pop some popcorn, it’s time for another Baby Bug home movie (4.75 mb quicktime)! Groan, hiss… I know, I know…. Home movies suck. Especially ones with me starring as the high pitched annoying mouse voice. This one is long too. I just couldn’t figure out where to edit it and then I just got lazy and figured I’d put a big disclaimer on the front end saying you don’t have to click on it. It’s your choice and really I mostly made this movie for the grandparents who appreciate these things. Or at least they lead me to believe they do. My mom recently had her phone disconnected. Maybe she got tired of me calling every day with the latest update on baby drool.

    I was going to save this for Baby Bug’s three month movie (that’s my plan, make a movie every month) but I couldn’t wait. It’s just too big of news to wait. She’s rolling over! Sort of. With a little help from mom. Just a little push, it’s hardly cheating.

    She’s so amazing these days. Between the buh-bbb-buh-buh blowing spit bubbles and the pterodactyl shrieks that clearly say “Mom! Rescue me from Dad who doesn’t have a clue!!” I am just overwhelmed with how brilliant she is. My little genius! And cute to boot! What am I going to do with myself? I’m completely and one hundred percent smitten with this little girl.

    She was really good at the birthday party yesterday. Everyone LOVED her mermaid costume. I think I’m going to find someone to manufacture them for me and go into the mer-tail business… or something. I have so many ideas.

    I wish I could be a professional idea popper. It would say that on my business card. Brenda Ponnay, professional idea popper. Then all I would have to do is sit around and think up ideas and maybe sketch them on paper so people could get them better. No worrying about capital or business plans or hiring and firing folks… just pure day dreaming up new stuff every day. That would be my dream job. Next to being a mom of course. Maybe I could do both.

    Enough about me. Baby Bug was a perfect mer-angel-baby yesterday. Except the part where she starting screaming while I was videotaping the birthday girl and now I’m going to have to do some extreme editing or find a really good sound track to mask out the merbaby shrieks. Thankfully I was there as a guest first and a video-girl second so there isn’t as much pressure to create the perfect birthday dvd this time. In fact they said they’d be okay if I took four months to produce it since I have next to no free time to work any more.

    It was really strange but good to be at the birthday party as a mom instead of my usual job as babysitter/photographer/videographer/girl-friday. I don’t think I mentioned it but this party was for Thing One, the little girl I used to babysit all the time. All these years I’ve been wishing I had a little girl like Thing One and now I do. Watching Thing One run around with all her little friends made me so excited for Baby Bug when she gets big enough to run around and play too. They are all going to be pals! There is only five years difference in their ages. That’s not too much. Maybe Thing One will babysit Baby Bug someday…it could happen.

    Thing One loves Baby Bug. She’s so good with her. Even though she was surrounded by friends and relatives, and plenty of fun things to do (like a woman who was hired to make mermaids out of balloons), Thing One spent a lot of time at my side holding Baby Bug’s hand as it hung down limply from Baby Bug’s sleeping perch in the sling. Later I decided to let Thing One hold Baby Bug and it was the cutest thing. Thing One is so gentle. Even with her cast. (She recently fell off her bed and broke her elbow.) She kept asking me if we should get Baby Bug a pillow and if we could put Baby Bug to sleep in her bed. I don’t remember being that interested in babies when I was her age. I guess Baby Bug is like holding a living, breathing doll.

    Kinda like how she is for me.

  • adventures in babysitting

    Thing Two and the Silver Balls

    I had a little practice in motherhood today. I was baby sitting Thing Two while his mom attended some luncheon or other. (Thing One now attends preschool so I often just babysit Thing Two all by himself.)

    So there I was sitting on their cushy corduroy couch reading Dwell magazine while Thing Two sat at my feet playing with a special toy that is usually kept up high and out of his reach. It’s kept out of his reach for good reason too because it has little silver magnetic balls about the size of a dime that can be ingested by three-year-olds. The silver magnetic balls attach to these x-shaped pieces and you can build things out of them. It’s kind of a nifty toy. Something I would have liked to keep on my desk in corporate-land to play with while on long conference calls.

    Thing Two is three years old. Of course he is too young to be playing with toys with small pieces. But he’s super smart (seriously, he can already read). I figured as long as I kept my eye on him, he’d be fine. Besides it was a special treat. Usually his big sister is around and she pretty much runs the show. It was super fun for him to play with something special all to himself.

    While he played and I flipped through a magazine, I told him to make sure he didn’t put any of the little silver balls in his mouth.

    Big mistake. That’s like telling kids not to swing from the chandeliers. They’d never even think of swinging from the chandeliers until you mention such a forbidden pleasure. So just as I say not to eat the silver balls, into his mouth goes a silver ball. His eyes are on me to see my reaction.

    “Spit it out!” I shout a little more suddenly and loudly than I meant. His eyes widen. I’ve startled him. Down his throat goes the little silver ball. He starts to choke and I rush to the floor and attempt a Heimlech maneuver on him. I try to keep my cool. “Can you spit it out?” I ask, hoping he’s just tricking me. At this point I’m thinking, either it better come up or it better go down. Just please please please don’t get lodged half way. It’s been a long time since I took that baby sitting CPR safety class and I really don’t want to have to use any of those skills they taught us.

    He starts to cry. I can tell the little silver ball has gone down. Part of me is relieved that he’s not choking but the other part of me knows I have to do something now. The ball is small enough, he’ll probably just pass it. But I have to be responsible and call 911 or call his mom. I decide to call his mom and interrupt her luncheon. Something I really hate to do but this seems like a big enough emergency to warrant an interruption.

    Thankfully, she’s really cool and doesn’t get mad at me first thing like I expect. I mean, I was watching him. How could I let this happen? If I was her I’d probably be mad at me. She says she’s leaving the restaurant and she’s on her way home right that minute. I can tell she’s scared. I feel horrible.

    I sit Thing Two down at his lunch table and give him some juice. He sputters and cries but is easily distracted by a puzzle he’d left on the table earlier. He forgets all about the silver ball, stops crying and plays with the puzzle. I wait for his mom to get home.

    On her way home she calls their doctor and the doctor gives her the same diagnosis I guessed at. Thing Two will probably poop the little ball out tomorrow and he should be fine. He just needs to be watched carefully for the next 24 hours to make sure he doesn’t have any intestinal pain that could mean some kind of blockage. Still, it’s scary.

    I can tell his mom is really freaked out about it. She tells me he’s putting things in his mouth a lot lately. She attempts to have a heart to heart talk with him but he’s bouncing around the room singing a song from this alphabet video we watched earlier. He seems completely normal. She decides to go back to her luncheon and have a glass of wine because it’s been “one of those days”. I stay and make him lunch and chalk it up as another lesson in parenting.

    Phew! Am I ready for this?