How To Help Your Baby Stay Asleep While You Run Your Vacuum--I'm sure there's a book for that. How To Trick Your Baby into Loving Strained Peas--there has to be one for that, too. How To Potty-Train--now, that's a big one. Anyone who has ever had a baby or even looked at one from across the room recognizes these as essential survival skills for parents, grandparents, and others who find themselves caring for a tiny human being while trying to maintain some vestige of a normal life.
I am surprised that I have not tried my own hand at writing for this lucrative market. My credentials certainly qualify me to do so. I have been a Googie now for twelve years and three months. I have a grand total of six grandkids, who all arrived over a six-year period. Somehow, Sooby is already twelve, and Heero, the youngest, will be six in just over a month.
And then, there's Packee, our imminent seventh, due yesterday. Apparently, he has failed to check his watch and will now be late to the party. This lack of consideration is making us all crazy. We are all so anxious, we can hardly stand it. Yesterday I forgot to take Pooh to soccer practice. The day before that, I took him, but it was a day too early. Today, Zoomie had a meltdown because he lost a piece of candy. It occurs to me that we could all use some advice on how to wait for a baby.
Or, maybe, we have some advice to offer, After all, Packee's four siblings and I waited all day yesterday and today. During that time we did come up with some coping strategies that may be worth sharing. Here are some of the things you can do if you, too, find yourself waiting for a baby.
1. Play charades, being sure to narrow the subject field a bit. Sooby, Bootsie, and I had the best luck with "nursery rhymes and fairy tales." If I do say so myself, I did quite a stunning job with "Hey Diddle Diddle" (but we won't talk about the "cow" part, okay?).
2. Look up techniques for the diabolo, a Chinese yo-yo your grandson can do tricks with. Pooh is pretty good at this, but he was having trouble with the diabolo wobbling too much. I am proud to say we found a trouble-shooting video on You Tube that fixed the problem.
3. Let the kids snuggle with you in your bed in the early morning, even if they are almost too old. Expecting a little brother is hard work, and they need a break. Bootsie and Zoomie took advantage of this opportunity.
4. Watch Kids' TV with them if it is a weekend night. You may, as I did, meet a new cartoon character. In my case, this was a mouse named Geronimo Stilton. Look him up--he is very smart, and his niece and nephew are cute.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The best way to wait for a baby is to spend the time with others who are also waiting and feeling the pain even more dramatically than you do.
That said, no one is more ready for this baby than my daughter Cookie. Yesterday she had a couple contractions in close proximity and went to take a shower because she thought it might be time. But it wasn't, so today she played the organ for a wedding. She has her own ways of coping.
Here is a photo of Cookie back at Easter time, already thinking about baby Packee. I'm sure that, right now, it must be impossible to think of anything else. I hope this delivery goes well and goes soon.
Because of previous plans and other obligations, I have come home now and will very likely miss being with the family for the birth. But already, I am jumping out of my chair every time a message dings into my phone.
It is even harder to wait for a baby from this distance. I can see that, in the coming hours and days, I may have to tweak my list.
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