My niece was born in June of 2000. Two days ago, my sister had a son whom they named Sean Douglas. He showed up a month ahead of schedule, but still weighed 7+ pounds. (My neice, Amada, weighed 9+ and was about a week late IIRC.)
I had a plan with the first baby to avoid baby-sitting duites. At dinner, before she had teeth, I pretended to feed her bits of my Porterhouse off the end of the steak knife. I made comments like, “If she wants that diaper changed, she’d better learn to do it her damn self.” When she cried and they were trying to figure out why, I took off my shoes to offer my socks to gag her with. When they suggested I show up more often to play with her so she’d be used to me, I showed up the next day with a regulation baseball, bat, and glove and said, “It’s never to early to learn. She’s walking already, what’s the big deal?”
My sister has apparently seen through my ruse as she still makes comments that one day I’ll be watching them for her and the BIL.
This must not happen until the kids are potty-trained and can speak. If a baby starts crying and I don’t know why, I’ll be reduced to a crying mass myself yelling, “What do you want?!” I have a gut feeling that any prolonged time with the babies alone would kill somebody. My money’s on me having an anuerism.
So, I just wanted to make this announcement that my sister squeezed out another pup but instead of the usual congrats that these things usually get (I mean, really, it’s not like I had anything to do with it), I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas of what I can say or do to convince my sister that I am unfit to watch the kids. Keep in mind I won’t acutally bedoing any of these things, I just want to freak out my sister.
And on a side note, the word is, as my sister lay in the hospital bed afterward and held her newborn son with her husband standing by her side, holding her 15 month old daughter, she looked up at my brother in law and said, “Wow two babies in less than two years. I just want you to know that we’re waiting before I have another one god dammit!.”
Well, my nephew was born September 1, 1997. I haven’t been left completely alone with him yet. My brother’s girlfriend is due on January 22, 2002 and there is really no way they’ll ever leave me completely alone with their baby.
Why?
Because the mere thought of being responsible for another human life is enough to make me puke. I watched a baby once. He was sleeping when his mom left, but he didn’t stay that way. I wasn’t even alone, but he got too heavy for my mom so I had to hold him. When he freaked out, so did I. At 2 beats per second my heart felt like it would burst, my temperature exploded to 102°+, I was trembling and I couldn’t breathe. It was awful. Eventually the terror consumed me and I passed out. Babies just do that to me. I really have no idea why.
I say, “I can’t watch babies because they cause severe panic attacks” and everyone else says, “You must be crazy”. So, here’s the plan - tell them all you’re crazy.
Awww heck Crunchy just accept your station in life. I never helped whelp any pups of my own but had no prob with watching after the progeny of my bros. and sis. Fun thing is you can become the good Uncle with the great presents and when they are trained you can take em out and do fun stuff with em. The really good part is when they get sick or start to whine and cry you can take em back to the 'rents and say something’s wrong with it fix it! Then you can go have a few beers and think…damn I am THE UNCLE!
Simple solution. Tell your sister that you and your monkey butler will be more than happy to take care of the lil ones. That should scare her off, tee hee.
I have 3 sisters and has one of them reproduced yet? hell no!
[sup]don’t look at me, I don’t want a kid yet! I just want to borrow one occasionally…[/sup]
Tell you what, you can offer my services. Tell them you were posting about their baby on the internet and some random chick volunteered and will now be covering all your baby-sitting duties.
Make sure the parents change the diapers before they go! Very important. I muttered something like; “I haven’t changed a diaper in years, can’t even remember how…”
Volunteer to feed lunch, something messy like mac & cheese, PB&J, (only works for older toddlers). Forget to put a bib on! Encourage children to get creative, and play with their food a while before eating. Parents walk in, see children covered with sticky peanut butter, jelly in the hair, no bib. I guarantee they’ll think twice about asking you to watch the kids again.
Worked for me! The problem is the kids had so much fun with me they ask for me by name.
FWIW, I never really baby sat the neices and nephews. One is step-niece and she’s 11 now, the other one in that clan will be 2 in Feb. The other two are 7 and 4. I did once when brother and sis-in-law were at a dinner next door – both under the age of 5 at the time.
I recently had to baby sit my best friend’s baby for two 9 hour days and I tell you, a crying baby is a lot easier than a toddler.
I asked my friend when she feeds the baby and plan that. I asked her when the baby needed changing and scheduled the time around that. If she cried, I simply picked her up and bounced her or walked her around the house.
Ick, I did have to change a poopy diaper though, man was that gross. What I don’t understand is why a baby who eats white formula and white cereal has green poop! I just put some perfume under my nose, turned on a fan so it was blowing away from me. It was the consistancy of wet bread dough and most of it was in a clump. I about puked but made it through okay.
No solutions other than to tell your sister straight up that you are uncomfortable with caring for a baby. Be honest, it worked for me for years. I just had to help a friend out so she wouldn’t lose her job.
Hmmm…She’s telling you what to do? Next time she does, scream " You’re not the boss of me!" and stick your fingers in your ears. That should give her a flash back to when you were kids and make her remember what an immature twirp you were- you didn’t have to be one, but she’ll remember you being one anyway.
Now this reminds me something! I’ll tell her that I’ll teach her kids all the things she used to tell me when we were kids (sis is 2 years older and used to take advantage that I didn’t know certain stuff). Among the things my sister “taught” me when we were kids, which I will threaten to pass down to her kids:
If you jump from the roof with an umbrella, you will fly just like Mary Poppins.
If you put a penny in the electrical outlet, candy will come out.
The stuff in the dog bowl is Cocoa Puffs, go ahead and eat it.
You sound exactly like my mom. She’s the cool grandma. Just last weekend, she taught my four-year-old daughter how to do the “see-food” thing. And she’s just dying to take her out on her motorcycle.
I taught Amanda how to snort. She’ll do it on demand just say, “Can you snort?” and do a couple snorting sounds. My sister hates it, but it’s sooo cute!
Show up to babysit with a ho. A real honest to goodness crack addicted ho.
or worse…
Start prolytisying and bible thumping about how you are going to baptize their unwashed heathenistic spawn of satan because your sister is not raising them right.
Volunteer to babysit, then call your sister a dozen times in the first half hour. " Where are the diapers?" “How much breast milk does Sean get?” " I spilled the breast milk, can I use whole milk?" …You are a creative guy, I’m sure you could run with this a hundred miles.
Ooooh… and my sister’s Orthodox Catholic so I can get all Jack Chick fundie on her!
**
“Hey, sis, I know I’m supposed to give Sean breast milk, but no matter how hard I squeeze, nothing’s happening. I tried using that pump you have, but I’m just starting to bruise the hell out of myself.”
Well, FTR, I squeezed out a pup two years ago, and it has never, ever occurred to me to leave him with either of my BILs. I mean, I know they couldn’t handle it. However, they’re nice and tolerant of him when we all go out together.
I do find that my one BIL is fantastic at taking pictures of Cranky Jr. He loves doing it, in no small part because he then puts the photos up in his work cubicle. The women at his office give him loads of attention for being “the devoted uncle” over this.
