Matthew and Andrew playing with blocks and trucks

Lastnight Andrew and I babysat Angela and Matthew.  The good thing is that since we’ve spent quite a bit of time at Gabe and Julie’s house, we were reasonably familiar with their routines.  Mind you, observing and doing are two completely different things.

Angela is 10 months old and is an adorable baby.  Whenever we’ve been around to visit she’s eaten well, never vomited, and basically is pretty happy if she’s being held.  One thing I’ve never taken any notice of is how often nappies are changed.  Matthew, at 3.5 years, seems to like to try to squash Angela when she’s crawling around.  Of course she doesn’t like that much and starts wailing.  So the trick of the night was to try to make sure that Angela and Matthew maintained a little separation.

Andrew was supposed to have played hockey that afternoon (he didn’t, but that’s another story).  He dropped me off at Gabe and Julie’s house and then went to the hockey ground which, luckily, wasn’t far from their place.  He left a spare set of clothes with me so that he had something to change into after the game.  As the night progressed, we discovered that it was quite fortuitous!  Andrew got back to Gabe and Julie’s even before they had left….they were running very late for their dinner.  When they had gone we finished watching Shrek 2 with Matthew and watched Angela playing in the loungeroom.  She had recently woken up from a short sleep and I’d given her some formula  already.  Andrew did a great job of keeping the two kids apart, basically by distracting Matthew so much that he mostly forgot to harass Angela.  Every time I see Andrew around kids I am reminded that I think he’d make a great father. 

For some reason Angela didn’t really want to eat her dinner.  But she was fussy so I changed her nappy (first one since my 22ish year old cousin was a baby…and when do you know it’s time to change a nappy anyway???) which turned out to be very wet, let her play a bit more and still she didn’t really want her dinner.  She was getting grissly, didn’t want the rest of her milk, didn’t want water and didn’t want food.  In the end she did eat her dinner, and soon after we put her to bed.  By this time it was also Matthew’s bed time, so while Andrew was putting Angela to bed I read Matthew some bedtime stories.  He has 2 books, then cleans his teeth and changes into his PJs, has one final book and goes to sleep.  I finished reading the second book and had just finished brushing his teeth when Angela was being quite vocal.  I went to see what was going on just as Andrew was coming out of her room with her.  He said she’d been sick and right then she gave a huge projectile vomit.  It must have emptied her stomach, there was so much vomitus.  Andrew was covered in it, literally covered!!

I took Angela and removed her outfit that was also covered in vomit while Andrew took off his t-shirt and washed his arms.  Then Andrew changed Matthew into his PJs, read him his last book (a present from us, so it was a new one for him) and turned out the light.  I had put Angela into a new outfit and she’d fallen asleep in my arms.  So I put her into the cot, said goodnight to Matthew, and we reveled in the silence! 

Andrew had a shower and changed into his other set of clothes.  Matthew came out once looking for something to take to bed with him.  He was undecided about what he wanted, so I gave him his stuffed monkey and he went back to bed.  A bit later on he was crying.  I went in to see what was wrong and he said he wanted his dad.  I told him that his dad wasn’t home yet and he kept asking, finally changing it to ask for his mum.  I told him she wasn’t home yet either, told him to go back to sleep and rubbed his back for a few minutes until he went back to sleep. 

I sat on the couch with Andrew, feeling a tad exhausted.  When Gabe and Julie got home at midnight they were absolutely amazed that both kids were in bed and asleep.  We chatted for a while, told them of our night’s adventures, and then Andrew and I went home for a well deserved sleep ourselves.

After being at Gabe and Julie’s for 7.5 hours I came to one conclusion.  Kids really are hard work! (But then again, I knew that already. :-D)