Tonight my brother Aaron and his girlfriend Becky were supposed to come over and watch Avery whild Josh and I attended a concert at Emerald Bay with some friends and coworkers. They have only watched Avery for us once before, but the last time was late at night and Avery was asleep the entire time. So tonight was to be the first time that they would have to feed her, bathe her, and get her tucked into bed.
Becky is the oldest of four, and has plenty of experience with babies, feeding, changing, and all the other "motherly" parts of childcare. Aaron works at a school with elementary and junior high kids, so he is good at providing fun and entertainment for Avery. Unfortunately Becky was sick this weekend, so Aaron texted me this afternoon to tell me that he would be babysitting alone. With this in mind, I tried to make it easier for him and prepared some instructions. I kept them simple and taped them up on the fridge, the wall of Avery's bedroom, and in the living room. When he got here, he told me that he hoped he did not have to change her diaper because he has never changed a diaper before.
I knew that she was due for a big bomb and I didn't want to scare him, so instead I gave him a crash course in diaper 101 and made him change her (clean) diaper before we left just so he would know what to do. With only 2 hours until bathtime, I just prayed that he wouldn't get any poopy diapers and that his evening would be all fun and games...
I checked my phone throughout the evening, and finally texted him around 7:15 (the time Avery should have been in bed), just to see how it all went. He sent back a text about how she had pooped and he "almost made it to the wipes in time." Both of my brothers are the kings of practical jokes, so Josh and I determined that he was probably just playing a trick on us and that everything was fine. He then sent me another text shortly thereafter that said, "She just peed on the bathmat." And again, we laughed it off.
We had a wonderful evening, and arrived home to a peaceful and quiet house. We asked him about the joke, to which he replied, "Yeah, I thought you guys might think it was a joke..."
When giving him instructions before we left the house, I had told him to play "I'm gonna get you!" before bathtime, because that is part of her routine. I had told him to strip her down to her diaper, and chase her around before putting her into the bath. He had misunderstood my instructions, and thought I had said to strip off her diaper. Running naked, she had stopped mid-chase to poop in the middle of the living room, as he ran for paper towels and tried to catch the "presents" in his hand before they hit the floor. He caught a few but missed one that was still hiding, and rushed her to the changing table, where he found the last one as it smeared onto the changing mat. He used an admittedly large amount of baby wipes trying to conceal the evidence before carrying her to the bathroom.
He got her into the tub and cleaned her thoroughly, so things were starting to go smoothly. Once clean, he scooped her out and dried her off, which was when he got my text. He stopped what he was doing to reply to the text, and next thing he knows, she is peeing on the bathmat. So back into the tub she went for bath number two.
(He finally managed to get her to bed, clean and fed, about 30 minutes past her bedtime. And despite the escapades, he said she was very good and gave her a glowing report).
But this is definitely one for the books.
