Buttons Are Her Crack, Switches Are Her Cocaine. You Know, Typical Baby Stuff.
I’m the grinning dork with all the tickets.
Friday night I was involved in a full on dance off to the BeeGee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ which I not only won, I rocked it out. The prize? Four suite tickets to the Indy 500 on Sunday. You guys, these are tickets you can’t even buy. You either have to know somebody, work somewhere super special or win them apparently. The biggest thing? Air conditioning. It’s going to be at least 100 degrees on the track of not more and I will be forever grateful (and slightly smug) for the cool air I’ll be watching the race from. With it being a holiday weekend and winning tickets on SUCH short notice, finding a sitter so Cody could come proved quite difficult, I dare say impossible. One of my friends offered at the last minute to take both little girls and I can’t thank her enough. Tonight, while I was thinking about it I typed out an email to her that had everything I wanted to say but would surely forget tomorrow morning.
It may kind of border on first time mom obsession, I just call it fair warning and good graces to alert someone to various baby quirks. Here’s how the email read:
Angie-
So Addie is pretty easy, she can say some ridiculous stuff, make some ridiculous faces but she’s seven. That’s what they do at seven. No food allergies and she’s not a picky eater, but she’ll claim she is. She’s exhausting sometimes. If she starts doing gymnastics off your couches tell her her dad said “NO GYMNASTICS OFF THE COUCHES.”
Vivi, I’m sending her with some food tubs and food pouches. She could probably eat them all in one sitting, it truly is kind of scary. But in general she’ll eat about a cup to a cup and a half of food depending on what it is. She can eat whatever you’re eating, just be aware she swallows things whole like an alligator. No food allergies. No true food dislikes. Her dad went a little heavy on the spicy, acidic foods in the last two days so her bum is a little raw from digesting it all. If you can avoid it, avoid beans, tomatoes and tomato based foods. Her bum thanks you. She also only likes water. Actually, she LOVES water. If she sees you drinking water and she doesn’t have water she will scream at you. It’s quite charming.
She’ll take a nap somewhere around 1, (meaning 12-2) and it will last 2-3 hours. We usually rock her a bit and give her some milk in a bottle if she wants it (the snuggling, it’s a hard habit to break.) She’ll want bunny and her blanket.
The snotty nose is from teething, watch out, she can bite and pinch (but not often, just something to be aware of, like ‘Don’t Feed the Bears’ but instead ‘Don’t put your finger in the baby’s mouth.”)
I’ll be bringing her some hybrid diapers, which aren’t as scary as full on cloth, the disposable liners inside just get tossed (or composted if that’s how you roll) when she’s changed and you can put a new liner in the cover (if the cover gets poo on it just shove the cover in the bright blue bag and pull out a new cover.) There’s one disposable for naps, since she kind kind of pees like crazy when she’s asleep and I’m not sure a hybrid is up for the task. There will be some bum goop in there too, in case her rear is still recovering from salsa.
She likes to be carried around to touch things. It’s Cody’s and her thing, as soon as you hold her she looks around and says “TOUCH!” which really sounds more like “TU!” but you get the point. She also points. Just in case you were wondering what all the pointing was about. I once babysat a kid that had a VERY STRICT “Goodnight Moon” routine and if you didn’t get it right he would NOT GO TO SLEEP. Gah, I hated that kid.
She can go up stairs, loves it. Cannot go down them nearly as well. Loves cell phones and remotes, but don’t give them to her or I told you so. Buttons are her crack, switches are her cocaine. You know, typical baby stuff.
Thank you again so much, I know Cody feels as grateful as I do but he’s not very good at expressing it.
Hope you have fun with these two. If they’re jerks it’s not my fault.
-Casey
Find more Casey on her blog, twitter, Pinterest, Flickr and facebook.
Also Babbled:
I once wrote a list of things like this for my parents to use for our daughter, which they raised their eyebrows at. They’d had 4 kids, you know. But really, I wasn’t worried about my daughter dying – they had plenty parenting instincts to prevent that. But every kid has their own habits and routines, and you just want to babysitting to be kind of fun for everyone involved, instead of a fight.
I probably could have just let them fend for themselves, but even though they made fun of me for the list, I think they secretly were grateful. Everyone loves detailed lists, right?
http://raisedbymydaughter.blogspot.com/
I once wrote a ‘note’ that ended up being a full page front and back. It was the first breastfed baby to be watched by this person. She did OK with the ‘note’ but never did follow it completely and I didn’t freak out. Your note is great – more about their personality’s than anything. You will look back on this when they are grown and it will flood you with wonderful memories of them when they were your little girls. Hope you had fun Sunday!! We always leave town race weekend!