Last night I decided to treat Marie to a little evening at the Nail Spa by my house. In order to do that, I needed a babysitter for Cole first. Well, when the thought occurred to me, Jes was standing next to me and I had a mini-“aha moment”. I took a chance and asked him if he would be willing to hang out with Cole for an hour and he surprisingly said “sure” without hesitation. I paused for a moment due to the confusion that had come over me and he said, “hurry up and call her before I change my mind!”. Anyway, it was a go and we were off to get our nails done! Marie was so excited and I was a little worried for Jes.

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For the first fifteen minutes, I had to order Thai food so I called Jes twice to ask him what he wanted and it sounded like he had everything under control. Well, 15 minutes turned into 45 and then by the time we picked up dinner and got back to the house it was an hour and a half later and Cole was on the couch with Jes’ leg blocking the drop-zone crying his poor little heart out.

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According to Jesse, Cole was cool for the first 20 minutes or so just hanging out and goin’ with the flow. Then, as if a switch turned on, he realized that his mommy wasn’t around and started to cry. It sounded like he cried for a good hour. Jes laughed at first…haha…15 minutes of crying is still kinda funny. Then the next 30 minutes was spent walking him around, checking for a poopy diaper, and trying to calm him down. Then he tried putting Cole back on the couch and and turned up the TV. It worked at first but 5 minutes later he started to cry again. There was a periodic pause in his crying as if he was tuckered out but then he caught his breath and it was back to the tears! All I know is that when I walked into the livingroom, Cole was trying to catch his breath in Marie’s arms, there were little wet spots all over the couch, and Jes sat on the couch with a funny grin and couldn’t say anything but, “uh, he pretty much cried for the last hour…little wanker”.

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Oh well, so much for Jes’ first try at babysitting. It sounded kind of like my first time with Cole back in September. The only difference was that Cole fell asleep for me after 30 minutes. Nice try, Jes.

Marie had to go into the office today so she called me up this morning to see if I’d be willing to hang out with Cole for bit. I didn’t have anything planned so I thought, “sure, I’ll give it a try”. I got there around 12:30. Marie fed him before leaving and then it was just me and the baby.

It started out great at first. Cole was in a good mood having a full tummy and lots of energy. He hung out in this little walker/activity thing for about 30 mins while I worked on my website and chatted with Holly on the phone. I thought, “hey, this isn’t so bad”. But I thought too soon. He eventually got a little fussy so I had to hang up the phone and took him out of the walker and tried to entertain him.

Little by little, he got crankier and crankier until he was at a complete state of meltdown with tears and everything. I can tolerate crying like the best of them so I let him cry his poor little heart out for a good 20 minutes while I held him, swung him, bounced him, sang to him, and even changed his diaper. I eventually put him back in the walker to see if he could calm himself down but he was just too angry. He just cried and walked around in circles for a good minute. Then I gave in. I picked him up again and called Marie. I felt bad and thought there might be something wrong but by the time I got on the phone with her, he started to fall asleep on my shoulder. “Ah…all better. Into the crib you go!”

So Marie was able to work another 45 minutes and I got some quiet time to finish up my site until Marie came home. All is right with the world when you can get a good nap in. Gotta love the naps!

By the way, like the new beakatude site?