I am as close to retired as a homemaker ever gets. In the winter I enjoy working on jigsaw puzzles, or getting lost in a book, or putting pictures into my scrapbook-style photo album. But sometimes that comfortable existence gets interrupted.
My youngest daughter (age 30 and a single mom) was complaining about her tonsils when I visited her Jan 6th-7th. She felt worse on the 8th, after I had gone home, and by the 9th she felt absolutely horrid. She took her toddler to day care as usual, then went to urgent care instead of school. There she was diagnosed with Influenza A, and she was very sick for five days.
My mom instincts kicked in, and I wanted to rush off and help her. But I had a dentist appointment that afternoon, and those things are written in stone, not to be altered except in the direst of circumstances. And I had a very important meeting to attend in the evening. The next day I had two appointments and I really didn't want to reschedule them.
Fortunately, a good friend of hers who lives nearby was able to pick up my granddaughter from day care and take care of her until bedtime while my daughter lay in bed and felt like death warmed over. I came to the rescue the next afternoon: I drove the hour to her place, gathered up the baby and her essentials, and took her to my house.
The baby has been at my house for visits many times in her 17 months of life, so I have the basic routine down: set up the portable crib in my room, pick up anything small, move the pet food and water dishes outside, put the wastebasket in a bedroom,etc. But as she becomes more inquisitive and more mobile, more things have to be moved out of reach.
Our youngest was 6 years old when we moved to this house, so we never raised a toddler here. Consequently, I never thought about some of the hazards in this house. We already installed a good baby gate at the top of the stairs, but this time there was a new dilemma.
Those stairs lead down to a landing, and then down to the left to the basement, for a total of 14 steps. On the main floor, a half-wall separates the dining room from the stairwell. Baby can now climb up on the dining room chairs, two of which are adjacent to the half-wall, and was trying (unsuccessfully) to climb onto the half-wall, from which she would most likely tumble right over the edge and fall approximately 12 feet and be seriously injured or die.
So I had to remember to always push my chair up against the table so the toddler couldn't climb onto it. If she was going to be here on a more regular basis, I would rearrange the furniture somehow, or hire a carpenter to build a fence above the ledge on the half-wall.
I am sure Baby missed her mommy, but she was in good humor much of the 4 days she stayed with us. She did pretty good at night, just fussing a little when she couldn't find her pacifier or her bottle in the crib. She amused us with her silly antics, and baffled us with her occasional wails over what seemed to be nothing. She is teething, so much can be blamed on that.
After 4 days and 5 nights, I was quite ready to return the busy little baby to her mother. I don't sleep well anyway, so the added interruptions left me extremely worn out. I took lots of naps when she did, and didn't plan on starting any projects while she was visiting. The one thing I absolutely had to do was pay some bills, which I did during one of her naps.
Now life is back to normal. I finished a jigsaw puzzle, and am well into another good library book. I have time to read Hive posts again, and am even writing one. I am glad I was able to help my daughter out in her time of need, and I am also glad I could take the baby back to her when she finally felt better. There is a good reason why we have babies when we are young! I know there are people my age who are raising grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, and I have no idea where they find the energy.
