Adventures in Baby-Sitting

BGF took a day off of work a few weeks ago to baby-sit his 8 month old nephew. And this baby is adorable, y'all. He's a charmer to the nth degree and could probably save the world with his dimples.

BGF hasn't had a ton of baby-sitting experience in his life, so the day promised to be an adventure. The baby delivered.

This baby, like most babies, enjoys grabbing manically at anything possible. Including the dog. Fortunately for us all, Parsnip is surprisingly okay with the baby, so dog-sitting for me wasn't a problem for BGF. In fact, it was like built-in entertainment for the kid. And in between pulling the dog's snout and ears (and, of course, poking at her eyes), the baby enjoyed running into things, like the coffee table and the entertainment center and the lamp. At one point, he thought it'd be a good idea to play with the electrical outlet strip.

Now you see why BGF needed a Diet Coke. He had to have something to enjoy in between chasing the kid down and yelling, "Don't touch that!" Your throat gets parched after a while of doing this, apparently. Besides, how else would he have the energy to keep the moppet out of trouble if he didn't have the life-giving power of Diet Coke?


Apparently BGF turned his back for one second though. One second in which that precious, precious Diet Coke, yes that one tin can holding the life saving liquid inside, was sacrificed. To the baby. BGF had parked that coke on the coffee table, which was, unfortunately, right in the baby's reach. He decided to take a swing at the can, much like how he goes for the dog's snout and grabbed that can right in his chubby little hand. And then proceeded to turn the can UPSIDE DOWN. Diet Coke went EVERYWHERE. On the floor, on the table, on the baby. (The dog was smart enough to get out of the way.) So now there was a sticky, carbonated child screaming on the floor. He managed to get his entire body wet and his clothes were disgusting. Unfortunately, the baby didn't have a change of clothes, so BGF had no choice but to strip him down and wash said clothes. He took care of business pretty efficiently and things seemed to calm down until time to get the clothes out of the dryer. Here's how it went down.

Onesy? Check.

Shorts? Check.

Sock? One. Check.

Other sock?

...

Other sock?

...

Where's the other sock!?

BGF had managed to lose the other sock because, in his words, "they're so dang tiny!" The baby sock was nowhere to be found and he was fearful that he'd have to return a sockless baby. This would not do because everyone knows a sockless baby is a hobo baby and a hobo baby is a sad baby and a sad baby is a poor reflection of its care-giver.

At one point during this search, I called him to ask about something on his desk at work and he proclaimed, "I can't find his sock!" I had no idea what he was talking about, but at that point, I figured it was best not to know. I wished him luck and went about my work. (A.K.A. popping a bag of popcorn and e-mailing.) A few minutes later I received an e-mail from BGF with this text:

"I found the sock."

All was right with the world again and then about thirty minutes later, this e-mail came:

"I don't think I'll be baby-sitting for [baby's name] anymore for a while."


Behold the destruction from the baby. He pulled down everything (he could reach) off of the entertainment center. I think BGF's got a point.