23 April 2012

Good practice

23 April 2012
Eric and I have graduated from dog-sitting to babysitting. This past weekend (Thur. through Sunday), we got to watch our 8-month-old, sweet, chubby cheeked, ginger niece Ella. When my brother asked us, I was a little shocked. It had been a looong time since I was responsible for an actual baby for any period of time longer than a couple of hours.

I remember babysitting cute little baby Kelby overnight, but that was about 7 years ago. His parents dropped him off in the evening and ran to the hospital to have Baby #2. I remember him sleeping in bed with us. His fingers were in my mouth (pulling down my bottom lip), and his little body was stretched over mine, but I didn't want to budge because he was just so darn cute, and I didn't want to risk waking him.

I guess we were due for a refresher course. Luckily, Ella spoiled us. She only gets up once in the night, takes her bottle, and then goes right back to sleep, and she doesn't wake up until 9am or so! It's pretty fantastic. She also takes a couple of long naps during the day.

She really was pretty easy...with one exception...she wasn't very fond of Eric. When she first saw Eric stroll into the house, she cried hysterically and continued to just stare at him for a few minutes until finally I had to take her into another room. It was hilarious. Unfortunately, it also got Eric out of a lot of the baby duties (diapers, feedings, etc.). Luckily, toward the end, she started to warm up to him, and he was able to help out a little more (without causing hysterics).

And it was an absolutely beautiful weekend with temperatures in the high 80s! So we definitely took advantage of the weather by going to my nephew's football game, going for long walks, etc.

Thanks for the fun weekend Ella.


14 April 2012

Aesop's Wind and Sun Fable

14 April 2012
The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

“Kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails.”