The Number Field

I've now completed two days as Elena's primary daytime caregiver. I'm happy to report that we are all doing well, the apartment is mostly tidy, and the dishes are clean. I still haven't ventured into doing laundry, although I have folded some clothes. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the first two days.

Wednesday morning, I was warming up some frozen milk in a tub of warm water. I thought the storage bag was sealed, but it wasn't, and when I picked it up, half of it spilled. No matter; I just added a little more formula. The mishaps weren't over--I added some rice cereal, and then put the mix in a bottle with a high-flow nipple. However, the consistency must have been a little bit thinner than planned, as Elena gulped down the food four times faster than usual. When I burped her, I patted her about three or four times before she had an extremely wet burp, losing much of the food she had just inhaled, probably because she ate it so fast.

Later, I needed to go into school to get just one thing. We hadn't planned for this, and Jenny took the car with the stroller in the trunk. I took the tummy pack, but when I got to school Elena was asleep. Luckily, I found an extremely good parking spot, and was able to lug her car seat with me to my building. She got lots of oohs and aahs from the secretaries in the office when I stopped in.

Yesterday none of our babysitter requests came through, so I took Elena to school with me for classes. This time I had the stroller, but my parking space was farther away. I had to alter my route from parking to building quite a bit to accommodate the stroller--I usually take lots of stairs without even thinking about it. Elena gave me a big surprise just a few minutes before the first class: a poopy diaper. I was prepared, and changed it without trouble.

The classes both went well, and Elena was very well-behaved. My students all loved her, especially when she made cooing sounds while I was talking. That was mostly in the second class, when she was sleepy. While I was walking back to the car, she got a lot of looks and smiles from random women on the street. As I told Jenny, this baby is a chick magnet .