Her name is Ellie. She's seven months old and 15-20 pounds,
depending if it's the beginning or the end of the day. Linda use to
do child care in our earlier years of marriage, and it never
affected me that much, with the exception of a little aggravation
and of course the financial input. But never in my dreams did I
imagine we would baby sit again at our age. I wasn't too sure about
this, but it looked like the best option. If you're working and you
get exhausted, what better place than in your own home?
We were recommended to Ellie's
parents by friends and upon meeting them, we both were thinking, "we
have grandchildren older than this couple". Which would also be the
same as baby sitting our great grandchild.
We met the parents and they were
a very nice couple. The feelings were mutual and after a few days of
discussion, it was recommended by them that we have a background
check. After all, they didn't know who we were. I must admit it was
a bit insulting and I was ready to end discussions right there. They
had arranged to have us get our fingerprints and send them to the
FBI. The FBI? I certainly didn't want anything to do with the FBI.
A couple of days later, I
submitted and with my ego tucked back where I keep it, we had our
fingerprints taken and sent to the FBI. I began to worry about this
process. What if they find something? Like the time Charlie Lobban
and I sat on the roof of Mick Or Mack's grocery store, and with a bb
gun, shot at the windows of the Alderson city building. Or maybe it
could have been the time I wrote some bad words on the sidewalk,
something like "darn" and "heck". The reports came back after a
lengthy time. They told Linda she was so old she didn't have
fingerprints any more. Since there was a delay in hearing from them,
I figured the Bureau had been very busy doing background checks on
conservatives.
A typical day is her arrival,
about 8:30 AM, and she is always happy to see us by giving us one of
her great big grins. (She's got me right there from the beginning.)
The bottle feeding is shared by both of us, but soft foods is done
by Linda. Apparently this can only be done by women and men who have
three hands. Oddly enough, her sleeping times seems to come at the
same times as our rest periods. We both change diapers with the
exception of the "gruntin' greenies", and that's all Linda's. We
split up certain duties to give the other some time of our own; like
resting. (Not to be confused with the other periods of rest
mentioned previously.) At the end of the day after she goes home, we
fall into each other's arms, thinking, or stating how tired we are,
then missing her being here just minutes after she left.
It's been a few months now and
we feel very blessed. This little girl is a delight. It's hard to
do, but it's a shared duty and is working out great. We wouldn't
have missed this opportunity knowing what we know now.
Well, I have to end this. The
phone is ringing and I'm telling Linda not to answer it, for it
might be the FBI . It could be they've found something. After all,
we are registered Republicans.
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