Nephew

So I have this wonderful new nephew, Gage, who is the cutest. He is exactly a month old today. I offered to my sister to starting taking care of him every Friday when she goes back to work. I willingly giving up my free day to 1. Help ease the EXPENSIVE day care costs for Kara and Alan, 2. Not allow for him to be stuck in a day care all day every day (Kara is taking Mondays off), 3. Bond with him and, 4. Get MUCH needed practice for when I starting having kids. And I have to say that I am kinda nervous about all this and I won’t tell her I am. I have a feeling she knows or senses my nervousness though…but for some reason she trusts me. This is the first time I have ever been around a baby. I mean, I have held them before but never been around one this much let alone helped take care of one. The first time I tried to change his diaper was a little rough. Here is how it went down:

It was when he was not even a week old. My sister was taking a shower so I was just sitting on the couch holding him and feeding him his bottle. He started to feel a little wet so I took charge and got up to change him (I have NEVER changed a diaper before). His onezie was wet so I took that completely off before I changed the diaper. Before I put him in a new onezie I started to change the diaper. BAD IDEA!! This little man hates to be cold. He screamed so loud and my sister from the bathroom was like…”whats wrong with him.” I said I was trying to get him in new diaper and clothes cuz his diaper leaked. So she got changed really fast and started to help me (She has lots of experience…she was a director of a day care..) cuz WOW…he was screaming. So my sister came in and helped me get his onezie off (I am very cautious of his head so I wasn’t acting very fast). So, I reached down in the drawer and grabbed the diaper…my sister turned her head away from Gage for literally a split second and we turned our heads back to Gage and he had peed on the wall and on himself. So we had to spend a little more time cleaning him up, which pissed him off even more cuz his screaming got louder. But finally he had a new diaper and a new onezie and the screaming stopped. All was well. So I learned…change the diaper first…then get him in a new onezie. Who would have thought you had to do it in those steps. I felt like such an idiot. I kept apologizing to my sister and she said it wasn’t a big deal…she learned the hard way too. Always keep him warm..no matter what.

So, watching him for like 15 minutes was a disaster. Now I am gonna have him for about 8 hrs every friday. I keep telling myself that it will get easier the more I am around him, so hopefully that is the truth. I just get kinda tense when he cries because I want to do everything I can to make him stop and sometimes I can’t so I just hand him back to my sister and she gets him to stop crying. She has the mothers touch. So, the first day I can predict is gonna be a little rough. But I will learn. And hopefully Joey will have some of those days off with me so he can help. He has been around babies and kids way more than me (his brother has three kids and he too once worked at a daycare) and it shows. He is soooo great with them.

And I guess it will give me MUCH needed practice for when I have kids. But I’m still nervous. And I will be for a little while. I just don’t want to show it around my sister cuz she trusts me with her new born child. I want to prove that he is in good hands so she doesn’t worry while she’s at work. I guess I just have to push that anxiety aside and trust that everything will go great. I want Gage and Auntie Anna Fridays to be a day of bonding…not a day of freaking out.