Outing

DH and I went on our first date since Baby E was born; to a live production of Pride and Prejudice. The play was great, but the outing as a whole was not a roaring success.


We had trouble finding a babysitter.

I really wanted to leave the kids with someone who has kids of their own and is experienced with young children and babies, if we had to leave all three at all.

My mom was going to watch the kids, but ended up not being able to because a couple of us had runny noses. As a transplant recipient on immunosuppressants, Mom can't be around anyone with even a minor illness.

Everyone else we asked wasn't available tonight. We had a few other people who might have been willing to take care of the kids, but late evening is difficult for them for various reasons (early rising, young kids of their own, not liking to drive at night, etc.). And it's so hard to ask people for things like that.

So we ended up using our regular teenage babysitter, which I didn't really feel comfortable with. We hadn't left the baby with her ever before and it would be a long time. However, she assured us that she was experienced handling babies and was comfortable caring for all three kids by herself.

I asked the sitter to come between 5 and 5:30, preferably by 5:15. She arrived at 5:42, which significantly cut down on the time I had planned to go over things with her and explain things to her. So DH and I were both hurriedly trying to tell her things while getting ready to run out the door.

I tried calling twice on the way to the theater to check on them and to tell the sitter not to use the milk in the bottle (since I discovered that the milk DH had given her to use was a batch from about 2 weeks ago that had been supposed to have been thrown away) and which milk to use instead. The phone machine answered both times. Then DH informed me the cordless phone wasn't on the cradle, so she probably couldn't find it. So I called again to leave a message telling her where to find the phone.

When I called home during intermission the babysitter sounded like she was almost in tears. She said the baby had been crying a lot and the older two weren't staying in bed. She wanted to know how long I usually heat up the bottle in the microwave, since she wasn't sure she'd done it right when trying to feed the baby. She also hadn't heard my messages from earlier.

First, I told her to dump out the milk she was using. Then I explained that I never use the microwave; I run the bottle under warm tap water or set it in a glass of warm water. I told her how to test the temperature by putting a drop of milk on her wrist, and explained that it should be just body temperature. She seemed surprised and thanked me, and said she'd try it.

When I called a few minutes later (at the end of the intermission) to see if she needed us to come home, she said everything was fine and the baby was taking the bottle.

We came home to a rather traumatized babysitter and a very upset baby who had screamed most of the time. I'm actually not really sure how the other two kids did; the babysitter was eager to get away from our house when we came home.

The babysitter apparently didn't know how to do basic things like heat up a bottle of milk, and was quite rattled by the baby crying. Since DH had gotten the milk ready in the bottle and told her where it was, I thought he'd explained all that, but he hadn't. That's one problem with both of us taking turns briefing the babysitter while being in and out of the room in turn, getting ready to go.

The look on Baby E's face was one of despair, hopelessness and panic. I wanted to cry right with her. She was so happy to see me though, and to nurse. She hardly took any of the expressed milk from the bottle while we were gone, so she was gulping like crazy and swallowing air when I finally got her calm enough to eat. I kept apologizing to her and holding her close.

The babysitter says after tonight she's decided she doesn't want to have kids "for a very long time." I felt bad for her, too, especially since we weren't very organized and didn't explain everything adequately.

In the forseeable future, it looks like Baby E will be going with us on any outings DH and I take together.