Adventures in babysitting

Aunt Lori came to visit the kids this weekend, and they all had a swell time with her. Parker was giddy to have her here, most likely because she plays with him nonstop and finds whatever he does charming and delightful. The girls are generally happy with anyone willing to make faces at them, and Aunt Lori did not disappoint.



On Saturday night Rachel and I went out for dinner and a movie, and left Lori with the kids. We'd put the girls to bed, and they're always champion sleepers, so Lori just had to get Parker to bed. We were frankly nervous this arrangement, but Lori assured us that she had 100% confidence in her ability to deal.

Rachel and I grabbed a quick dinner at Barney's and then saw The Year of the Dog, with Molly Shannon, who gave a solid performance in an odd little movie. After that we sat in a hot tub, and then headed home. It was about 9:45 when we got home, and you couldn't hear any screaming from the street, which we thought was a good sign.

Lori was sitting at the dining room table when we got in, and she looked a little haggard. Apparently it had only been about 15 minutes since she'd gotten the last kid to sleep, and she was still just catching her breath. Rachel and I sat down to hear the harrowing tale.

Apparently Miranda had woken up crying shortly after we left, who proceeded to wake up Elizabeth, and Lori made a couple of trips into the room to put pacifiers back in their mouths (our recommendation) and get them calmed down. But by the third trip in, Lori was somehow lured into making a cardinal error of bedtime: she got Miranda out of bed and brought her into the living room.

To be honest, I couldn't follow all the intricacies of what happened next, I think because I was so mortified listening to it. I think she let Parker stay up past his bedtime in the hopes that she'd be able to get Miranda back to sleep, but Miranda was apparently alert and happy and delightful, and showed no signs of being tired. And neither did Parker. When Lori finally gave in and started Parker's bedtime routine, Miranda was still awake, and so Aunt Lori read books and sang songs to both kids at once. And then when the routine was over Parker threw an unfortunately fairly common bedtime tantrum, and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs from his bed for half an hour, while Lori sat in the living room trying to coax Miranda into showing the slightest sign of sleepiness, which apparently took a good long while still.

So by the time we walked in the door, Parker had been asleep about 45 minutes and Miranda had been asleep for about 15 minutes, and Lori looked like she'd just gone twelve rounds.

Elizabeth, of course, had been asleep for hours.