Burk Babysitting

I watched some of Jim's Aunt's kids today. It was pretty fun. They have a little girl a few days younger than Tralee, and it's cute to watch them interact. Their daughter Brinley is so well behaved compared to Tralee. She doesn't cry/whine when her mom leaves. In fact, it didn't even seem like she realized her Mom was going. She just wandered around. Tralee keeps a radius on me. If I get too far away it's like something inside her goes off, and she goes into crisis mode looking for me. When I leave Tralee with anyone for even a minute, she starts wailing.

When we were at the Mom's luncheon yesterday Tralee started climbing the stairs, and another Mom went to go pick her up. As soon as Tralee realized someone other than her mother would dare to come near her, she started running/hiding her face from the other mom to get away from her. As soon as the mom picked her up, Tralee started crying until she was back in my arms again. CRAZY KID! It's not like I RUN to her every time she cries. I let her calm herself down, or find her way back to me on her own. So, I don't think it's completely my fault that she is the way she is. Part of the problem is it's just her and me all day everyday, so she's used to that dynamic. Oh well, hopefully she'll grow out of this Mommy phase soon. It's difficult on me, because I know of fun and cute she can be. But, if anyone else tries to get in on the cuteness Tralee turns into a clinging crying mess!

One funny thing happened at the Mom's lunch yesterday. Someone was playing peak-a-boo with Tralee, and she wasn't quite ready to warm up to this person yet. So, without looking she was scooting back towards my lap. Michelle was between me and Tralee, so Michelle picked up Tralee without letting her see who it was. Tralee started hugging, laughing, and snuggeling with Michelle like she thought it was me, and she was playing and laughing with the person playing peak-a-boo with her. We all knew that Tralee didn't know an imposter Mommy was holding her. We all waited to see how Tralee would react when she realized she was being lovey-dovey to someone other than me. It took a few minutes, but Tralee turned to me with a smile on her face, and then her face went from smile to utter confusion in less than a second. Then she turned towards Michelle's face with a "Oh no, who's been holding me" look on her face. As soon as she put two and two together she started crying. It was almost like she was crying more out of embarrassment than fear. We all started laughing, and Tralee managed to find her way back to her real mommy. It was cute!

I went to Michelle's today to watch her kids. I took the babies for a walk, while Spencer rode around on his bike. Then we played outside until the girls got cold/cranky. So I took the kids in, fed them, put the girls down for a nap, and just hung out with Spencer until Michelle returned. It was a nice day.


Now I'm home again. Jim didn't make it back yet, so we had to schedule a make-up game for bowling night. He thought he might be back in time, but there's still a lot to do. Jim said the house is over 12,000 square feet. CRAZY! Part of the problem is the people who delivered the cabinets put them in the basement. Jim had to carry all the cabinets from the basement to the main part of the house before he could start installing. Poor guy! That took up a lot of time. Who would put cabinets in the basement? Stupid heads!

Well, I'm going to post some pictures and call it a night!