Babysitting grandkids

Sheer bliss radiated from Daisy’s two-year-old face as she floated in the kiddy pool. Strapped into her chest and arm floaty she could not stay under water. Unafraid of anything, the minute I took her to the big pool, she rushed to the side and jumped into the pool. This baby loves the water. I’ve never seen anything like it. She comes up out of the deep, water dripping off her face, and heads for the ladder so she can do it all over again.

Little ones exhibit their personality so early and this child embraces life heartily as I observed the weekend I spent supervising her and her brother and sister.
Using still-developing language skills, I sort of understood most of what she said. If I didn’t, I asked the older children and they interpreted, although her brother told me, at least once, that she said “goo, goo, gaa, gaa.”

The one thing she really likes is “makeup.” Say that with the accent of a two-year-old who has discovered my red-tinted Blistex and smeared it on her lips. She grinned, quite pleased with herself for having applied makeup all by herself.

She likes the stuff avidly and really likes lotion. I took the three to the inexpensive department store to choose one item. Daisy honed in on the racks of lotion. She pointed at the jar of Vaseline, “I want that.” She insisted. I suggested something else. She wanted the jar of messy petroleum jelly – until she saw the baby oils and lotions.

“Uh, wan’ loootion.” She pointed and grabbed and insistently held it close, until we discovered the tightly- pressed washcloths. Only then did she let go of the lotion. Standing in the cart, she leaned over the bin and began sorting through to find the perfect washcloth.

I think she said, “I wan’ dis one” a couple dozen times before she settled on a Scooby Doo cloth. The washcloths with princesses, super heroes and the famous mouse and duck settled back into the bin.

It really did not take her any longer than Eli or Caroline to choose, they just found their purchase in the toys and crafts aisle. Caroline immediately said she wanted the princess crown and scepter but refused to take it off the shelf, “I want to look some more.” She found a dinosaur mask which she tried on for size, scaring fellow shoppers who liked to play along with children. The dinosaur went back into extinction and the hunt continued into the next aisle where she found a picture-making craft that she knew, just knew, “I want this!” And did not change her mind.

Eli looked at the plastic swords in their sheaths. He took them off the rack and swished it around several times. He did an en garde! and even tempted Caroline with the sword, but ultimately the sword stayed at the store. “I already have one at home. It is broken. I really like Hot Wheel cars,” he said, picking out a little white utility truck.

I thought that was what he wanted, but in the check-out lane he saw a really tiny flashlight, “Yes! This is what I want!” he exclaimed and put the vehicle back. He really wanted it. As soon as it went through the scanner, he opened the package and began puzzling the process for installing the batteries.

He likes to figure out how things go together and he likes to put them together, as evidenced by the amount of time he and his sister spent huddled over the Lego kit and Gearopolis sets I had found at a yard sale. They followed the suggested outlines for construction, they made their own constructions. They brought them to the dinner table, to bedtime and left them laying on the floor for my bare feet to discover.

Building sets remain a perennial favorite. They hold the challenge of creating a structure and provide an opportunity for creating an imaginary world. As they fiddled with the Gearopolis set, I heard Elijah say, “Let’s pretend we are twins.”
Caroline agreed, “I will be the sister and you will be the brother.” Sounds about right, just a couple years difference in their ages. Kids like to pretend they are twins.

Their imagination also took them to the circus when they went outside to play. About a half hour into their play, they invited me to watch the amazing, stupendous circus act. I went outside to watch while their little sister took a long, long nap.
They started to act, stopped and headed for the door. “We have to get dressed for a circus.”

They returned wearing Superman and Supergirl outfits. They whirled, they twirled, they daringly stood on the seat of the bike with training wheels parked in front of me. And for one brief moment, with a very serious look on their faces, each let go of the handle bars and almost stood straight up on the seat. Then they were off to another fantabulous trick.

Sure we did other stuff, but nothing beats a circus for capping off an extended weekend of baby-sitting the grandkids.


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