24 Weeks: Adventures in Babysitting

This was the week of Baby-Sitting! I covered two yoga classes and we had our dear friend, Will, come to town Saturday night. So...Harper, meet Susan. Susan, meet Harper. Susan is a college friend of Julee's from KU. She works at Bloomies and therefore has some odd week-days and evenings free. Susan is great for Harper. She's very involved at playtime. ... And she's very calm and assured, which is great for me. It was important for me to have the same person do all three days so we didn't repeat the Houston debacle...lesson learned...have H at least be familiar with the babysitter before leaving her for three hours.
Monday Susan was here from 8am til 11am. Tuesday Harper accompanied me to a casting for Lunesta. Wednesday Harper accompanied me to get my hair done and was the rage of the salon. "So big!" "So alert!" "So pretty!" The compliments came all day long. Harper was a trouper as she sat patiently during the two shampoos and was passed around the staff during the cut. Thursday Harper spent the whole day with Susan from 8:30am til 2pm... I got to grab lunch and a mani/pedi! How indulged am I?! Friday we rented a zipcar and drove to Union City for a Hasbro casting for me, which we snuck H into as well. They were looking for new moms and 6month+ babies who could sit up unassisted...and well, H looks 6 months and she can sit for 1-2 seconds without falling over, so good enough...now she's in the file for Hasbro and BabiesRUs!
Saturday was the big day. Or night, we should say. Susan came straight after work, got there by 7:30. We fed H, thought about putting her down for the night hopeful that she would sleep until we got home at midnight, then thought better. We hoped H would be in bed by 8. 8:30 I made the mistake of texting to see how it was going. NEVER DO THIS! Let the sitter call you!
"She's a little bit fussy, but she doesn't seem interested in sleep" was the text back. It made me laugh out loud. This is my daughter...she doesn't seem interested in sleep...she really doesn't. She plays happily as long as she's engaged. It could be worse. Way worse.
Still, I was alarmed, because though she doesn't act like she's interested, she does need her sleep. Nate went out and called Susan, told her to bounce on the side of the bed with H cradled in her arms, holding on to her outer hand (which we've dubbed the stone crab claw) and gaze into her eyes. (Don't know why, but if you look into her eyes, she shuts them...look away and they spring open...she's extra-sensory.)
She was out within 10 minutes. "Worked like a charm." I was so relieved to read that.
Of course, she woke up when we got home. But that was fine. Overall it was a success. And though we didn't quite have the sparkling adult conversation we wanted to (because we were both a little preoccupied and obsessed with how things were going at home), we did have a successful night away and hopefully it's one of many more to come.
Right about now, I'm longing to have family close, so we could practice this more often.

Harper continues to work on her vocal repetoire. This week: Squealing. She can now sit up by herself (for up to 5 seconds) and she continues to work on her 'standing'.

And now...we boogie...