The Other Other White Meat

I just got back from an afternoon of babysitting, the first I've done in over ten years. I nannied for one summer while living on Martha's Vineyard and had many babysitting jobs before that, but nothing after.

And I'd say my foray back into the realm of wee ones was a success. I sat for a baby girl who will be one in about a week. We'll call her Camellia. She has chubby pink cheeks, blue eyes, and bow lips, and she really took to me when I was at book club at her home a couple of weeks ago, so her mom asked if I would be interested in sitting. And I thought: Why not? It's a win-win situation, as this friend is someone who has done wonderful things for me, so now I can do something for her, plus I get paid, and her stay-at-home husband gets a break to do his creative thing. Honestly I would do this for free and I told her as much and I am still a little uncomfortable with how much I am charging her but -- okay, I'm not going to have diarrhea of the mind here. I just realized this is the second time in 2 posts I've used the d-word. Oh, well. I may as well go right into...

...the fact that I changed my first diaper in more than ten years today, too. Camellia's daddy said she wouldn't need a diaper change, and that she might have a wet diaper, if anything, so I took the poopy smell emanating from the wee one's bottom to be gas. That is until Camellia started giving me this funny look, and bouncing up and down, and then looking at me funny again, followed by more bouncing, and the wheels sloooooooooooowly started to churn in my brain...baby...needs...diaper...changed.

"Do you need your diaper changed?" I asked her. Then I scooped her up and strapped her into her changing table and went to work. It was a poopy one; smelly, too! But relatively firm. Camellia was very cooperative. She watched me while I cleaned her up and velcro-ed (yes, velcro!) her into a new diaper. I couldn't quite figure out the diaper genie but otherwise it went a-okay.

Then we played until she dropped one of her toys on her chubby little feet and she cried and cried, while I bounced her and walked her and stroked her little head. Then she nestled into my neck and fell asleep and I sat with her on the sofa.