Papa's Novel Babysitting Ideas

Post date: Aug 12, 2016 10:37:53 AM

These last few days, papa and I were both very sick. Initially the babies were okay. The older one was happily enjoying a vacation in grandma's house, keeping away from the germs. I think she might like those more often. She even went to school from there.

So papa and I were taking turns at babysitting the younger one. He would do one hour and then I would do one hour and then so on. Usually the kids spend most of their time home with me, but soon, the younger one got used to the idea of hanging out with papa in the middle of the day.

Actually papa has not had the chance to spend much one on one time, with the younger one. He spends a few hours with the kids every evening, but then both kids are together then and the younger one is busy mimicking the older one.

Papa loves to tickle and he discovered, that unlike the older one, the younger one loves being tickled. So papa spent his baby sitting time feeding her fruits and tickling her. One time I found them swaying in sync, singing some ridiculous song papa made up. They had a marvellous time.

Papa, was overwhelmed by the younger one's cuteness. He realizes that he needs to spend some time with just her, to get to know her personality, just like he did with the older one, when she was younger. So he has decided to set aside some father-younger-daughter-time, when the older one is in school. Yesss! That way I get some alone time too.

The younger one is quite easy going and papa was feeling chuffed about his babysitting abilities, when the older one fell sick and came home. That evening the younger one fell sick too. The two together have been a night mare to manage in the last couple of weeks. They are going through this stage where they fight every few minutes about heaven knows what. And when they are sick, they don't seem to have less energy, but they are more cranky.

Papa usually does highly energetic things like horsey rides and throwing them in the air and being a human jungle gym and is able to keep them both happy. But since every one (including papa) was sick his usual methods would not be applicable. So I was curious to see how papa would handle their constant bickering, when it was his hour to babysit. Oh I might as well say it, I was rubbing my hands in glee, knowing that papa could not use all the methods that were never available to me (I just lack the physical strength to carry out those crazy antics).

I expected to hear them screaming the place down, but it was very quiet. Really surprised I went to check that everyone was alive and I was surprised to see that both girls were having fun and papa was enjoying himself the most. How was that possible?

Turns out, papa discovered a while back that the older one loves to give head massages pretend hair-washes. Apparently she is particularly good with head massages. So papa asked her for one. He knew the younger one would want to imitate. So he asked her for a toe massage. It made the younger one feel very important and taking cues from her older sister she was diligenly massaging papa's toes. It was genius because papa being significantly over 6 feet tall the babies were kept well apart and busy with their activities, while sick papa enjoyed the pampering.

“No fair” I protested. “If only I had it that easy.”

“You can. They love this game.” Papa said happy to share his discovery.

It turns out they do and I got a 30 minute massage too before they got bored of it. I hope papa can come up with a few other games like it.