Day 127 - Grandma genes

Alex and I got to take care of James this evening, so his parents could go out for dinner for the first time in many months. When they dropped him off, Sarah showed me what was in the bag that we used to call a diaper bag when Mom carried one around, although there are so many more things in it than just diapers. In addition to diapers there was a change of clothing, in case more than a diaper needed to be changed, and a bottle of milk, although James hasn't adapted to getting his nutrition that way.

James is big on smiling these days. He smiles all the time at Simon and Sarah, naturally, and even gave Alex and me a few as well. Even after Sarah and Simon left, he gave us a few smiles while the two of us sat on the floor around James' car seat ooh-ing and ah-ing and goo-ing while shaking rattles in his face.  Alex finally got his dream - reading a book to his grandson.

But after about an hour, James stopped smiling, stopped playing with his toys, and started fussing. So we took him out of the car seat to hold him. We took turns having James sit next to us on the sofa the way we had seen him sit next to Simon in Facebook posts. In another 30 minutes, that stopped satisfying him and he became even fussier. I pulled out the bottle of milk and heated it the way Sarah explained. She didn't expect James to drink it, but it couldn't hurt to try, right. Alex moved the car seat to the sofa so neither of us would have to get all the way down on the floor again - because getting up is so hard these days - and rocked James while I heated the bottle. He wasn't interested in the bottle, of course. So I tried the next item on the checklist - James' diaper. Changing it was a good thing. For a few seconds, I thought it might be enough as I saw that smile again on his face. But once I got him bundled up in a clean, dry diaper and snapped his onsie back on, the smile disappeared and the fussing began again.

For the next hour, James cried. We tried rocking him in his car seat, carrying him around the house, turning off all the lights so that we would walk him around without lights, we turned off the TV and turned on the music on Alex's iPod. We had to trade off carrying him because my arms, shoulders, and back ached after a few minutes.

We even tried lying down on the bed in a dark bedroom with him. After 10 minutes, Alex picked James up and walked with him some more, at which point he finally stopped crying.  A few minutes later, we thought it was safe to put him back into the car seat, and it was. Five minutes later, Simon and Sarah arrived to pick him  up.

Because James didn't stop crying for so long, I started wondering if I have any grandma genes. While walking with him, I couldn't think of any lullabies. I just carried him, rubbing his back in the hope that it would comfort him. Maybe because I didn't have any of my own babies, the grandma genes just weren't kicking in.

We get another opportunity on Saturday.