Adventures in Babysitting

Joseph is a dad in our travel group who is here alone while his wife stays home caring for their other 2 children. Joe has adopted from China before – one of the few people in our travel group who has.

Taking this trip alone is a huge challenge. There is no one to give you a break, no one to take photos of events as they happen, no one to talk to in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep. Joe is a real trooper. So put together and doing a great job. The rest of us have been pitching in with photos and stuff and offering to help Joe as much as we can.

The day before yesterday – when Libby Doodle Doo was sick – Joe took me up on my offer to baby-sit his daughter M while he went out to run some shopping errands. He was going to walk to the Nanchang Wal*mart and said that my sister could come along to do some shopping for us – leaving me alone with 2 babies.

Baby M is a lovely child with a very serious, sad little face. Her birth date is very close to Libby Doodle Doo’s but she is much, much bigger than the Doodle. Looking at the two of them, you would think that M is at least 3 months older.

Joe came to my room when Libby Doodle Doo was down for her afternoon nap. He handed M to me, gave me a few instruction and left. I think the last thing he said is, “I know you can handle this, because you’ve adopted before.”

As soon as M arrived in my arms, I could feel her heartbeat begin to accelerate. By the time the hotel door closed and her Baba (daddy) was gone she was already starting to hyperventilate. In less than 30 seconds she let out a blood curdling scream that sent shivers through my body.

Poor thing, she was already bonding to her daddy and she thought that the trauma of Family Day was repeating itself all over again.

Of course her scream woke up Libby Doodle Doo. I put down M to scoop Libby Doodle Doo out of the crib. As soon as M was on the bed, her screams got louder. With Libby Doodle Doo in my left arm and baby M in my right I held both girls simultaneously bouncing up and down trying to calm them.

So I created a little Screaming Stereo for myself. The shrieks felt like they were going to burst my eardrums. Eventually I calmed Libby Doodle Doo down, but it was short lived. One look at M still crying convinced the Doodle that she needed to join back in.

Once upon a time before I adopted Little Zo Peep, I dreamed of receiving a twin referral. “How wonderful,” I thought. “My girls will be so close to each other and I would do all my parenting at one time – wouldn’t that be efficient.”

Am I lucky that the Gods of Adoption never granted me that wish.

I couldn’t seem to get both of them calm at the same time. One would slow down and the other would raise the volume – which only made the first one start up again. I tried diversion tactics – Cheerios – nope. Toys -- nada. Looking in the mirror (actually that made it worse because baby M saw 2 of me instead of 1). Finally, I discovered if we left the room and walked down the hallway both babies would stop crying most of the time.

Carrying one baby up and down and up and down a hotel hallway is tough (I did it a lot with Little Zo Peep 4 years ago). After awhile your lower back starts to hurt like you wouldn’t believe. Your pelvis starts to ache from swaying as you walk. Your neck and shoulders start to cramp up.

Carrying 2 is MURDER. I walked up and down the hallway and back again and knew that -- even though this technique was effective-- I’d never be able to do it for the duration of my babysitting assignment.

I went back to the room and laid both babies on the bed – which undid all the good work I had done in the hallway because they both began to scream again. I put on my Baby Bjorn harness and placed Libby Doodle Doo inside. Then I tried to put M in the stroller. She arched her back, stiffened and refused to go in. So I decided to carry her instead.

I must have looked a sight -- One sick yet mostly quiet baby dangling from a Baby Bjorn with one sock on; another bigger crying baby on my right side with tears running down her face. More than one hotel guest and cleaning person stared at my predicament. And – I don’t know why – something about the way I was walking made my underwear bunch up and give me a giant wedgie. Unfortunately with two hands holding baby M, there was no way for me to readjust myself.

But eventually the technique worked. Baby M calmed down and stopped crying. After a while her body lost its rigidity and she put her head on my shoulder. Finally she was napping. I continued to walk the hallway to assure that she was definitely asleep.

We returned to the room and I laid the sleeping baby M on the bed. I removed my own, nap deprived daughter from the Baby Bjorn and sat her on the bed to eat Cheerios. I patted Baby M as she slept. The next 20 minutes were heaven.

And then Baby M woke up again.

She immediately started crying again – not the banshee fearful cry of before, but a cry never-the-less. I picked her up immediately and started swaying and rocking. She started to calm down. But something amazing happened with Libby Doodle Doo when I did this.

So far I would say that Libby Doodle Doo is bonding with me – but not as intensely as Zo Peep did four years ago. Libby Doodle Doo will happily go to her Auntie A as she will to me – she seems to show no preference. I will say that she isn’t indiscriminate with her affections, though. Although she’ll flirt with other travel mates, she never has raised her arms to be picked up by them – a good sign that she prefers my sister and me over all others. The key is to get her to discriminate between the two of us. Libby Doodle Doo needs to see me as the Mommy and her as the loving Auntie. My sister and I have talked about this and talked about how we need to strike the right balance – we’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.

When Libby Doodle Doo saw me comforting Baby M, swaying her back and forth, patting her back -- she got angry. Really angry. She let out her “I’m not happy with this situation one little bit” cry. She raised her arms to be held by me. I saw this jealousy as a good sign of bonding.

But I knew that my back could not take much more of the “carrying two babies up and down the hallway” routine. I put Baby M back down – which started her crying again. Reinstalled the Baby Bjorn and put Libby Doodle Doo back in.

I tried to put Baby M into the stroller again. This time she let me do it – still crying though. But as soon as the stroller started moving into the hallway, she calmed down again.

So that’s how I spent the remainder of my babysitting gig. Walking the 3rd floor hallways of the Jiangxi hotel with one baby strapped to my chest, another ensconced in a stroller.

Joe and my sister found us in the hallway when they returned from their shopping excursion. I have no idea how long they were gone. My body would have guessed hours and hours and hours – in reality, I think it was probably between 1 hour and 1-1/2 hours.

Joe seemed a little bit surprise to Baby M’s passionate reaction to his departure. Like me he had not yet felt any intense bonding between M and himself.

But Joe and I both learned important lessons that day. I know it’s not true for all adoptive parents, but for the majority of them bonding is seldom a light switch; but more like a dimmer switch. It may take days, weeks – even months – to firmly bond. But every day most new adoptive parents are a little bit closer than they were the day before to establish a strong bond with their child.

On Tuesday both Joe and I saw how far we’ve already come in just a few short days.