Memoirs of a Babysitting Father:Entry 2

So this is the second day after Funsho has begun his vacation. Knowing the challenge before me, I was somehow just hoping today would go smoothly, just like yesterday. However deep inside I knew it wouldn’t just be like yesterday.

Let me give you some background, ok? I had worked late into the night and went to bed sometime after 2 am in the morning. What else could I do? Was I to leave my business hanging because I didn’t have any babysitter yet? Definitely not! So I tried to do some work before I crashed for the night.

I wasn’t as lucky as I was yesterday as my sister-in-law didn’t do me the favour of bathing my son. When I eventually got up from the bed, to listen to a 6.30am programme on the TV, I was groggily as I walked into the sitting room. As soon as I finshed watching the programme at 7 o’clock, my son went into the room where his laundry basket is, and pulled out his school uniform. He was bent on going to school this morning. I had to pacify him by putting his P.E. wear on for him. I got one of his favourite DVDs, a Hillsongs Kids video, and started playing that for him. That lasted a while. When he bagan to cry, insiting he wanted to go to school, I took him to a tuck shop nearby and bought him a few sweets just to get his attention off school.

Not long after, sometime around 11, Jadesola, my daughter woke up. She was wet and hungry and needed to be attended to. I mixed her formula up and soon she was sucking away at the bottle. As soon as she finished, I then went on to change her wet diaper. It was then that something funny happened.

I was removing the wet diaper and had put the clean one beside the baby when my 2 year-old son, rushed to the bed, grabbed the diaper and made a run for the bedroom door. I gave chase, and he laughed heartily to see me chase him for the diaper. I couldn’t help laughing when I caught up with him and pulled the diaper out of his hands. He fell to the floor, rolling in laughter. I couldn’t help but laugh. Where did he get that sense of humour from? That just opened the window of sunshine on my drab day. I really can count it all joy!

Life can be tough but what you do with what you have of it can make it so bright you’ll be laughing all the way.

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Memoirs of a Babysitting Father:Entry 1

We started off the day but not like our normal days. It had been a very physical weekend for me and I was short on sleep, so I was looking forward to making up for all the lost sleep. I was wondering how I was going to make that happen since my very energetic two year-old Funsho was home on vacation, having ended the school term.

My sister-in-law had bathed for him before she left for work, so that made things a little bit easier for me. That took one domestic task out of the way. I was really looking for ideas on how to keep the little laddie busy. How I was going to do it, I didn’t know but I knew I had to just pull it off somehow, at least until 5 o’clock when the shift would change.

To make things a little bit more complicated, my little son, not understanding the concept of school terms and the vacation thing, went to the door, dragging me along, in the hope that I would just take him to his beloved pals and teacher. He apparently has been enjoying school in the past few weeks and didn’t want it to stop.

So here’s my dilemma. I run a freelance creative design agency and I had deadlines to meet but here was I trying to merge that with handling a 5 month old baby girl and a toddler, whose energy level will tire Ben Johnson on steroids. Of course the one solution I could think up has been to work at night, so I baby-sit during the day and work at night. That hasn’t been coming along too well (the work at night bit) but I’m working at it until we can get some help.

In the meantime, I need to do something for myself. The bible says we should count it all joy when we face different kinds of tribulations. Well here am I in this kind of situation, where it appears everything is working against me and I have a choice to sulk and get upset and irritable. Why should I be the one under this kind of domestic pressure when I’m not a wife or mother? But I can also choose to be positive about this (and that’s why I’m blogging this issue).

So what was I going to do to keep this young man busy? God came to my rescue. Do you know how good sleep is? You really should be thankful to God that He created sleep. Its so gloriously relaxing that you can forget all the cares in the world and just….sleep? What other word can you use in place of sleep? You must be wondering why the praise has suddenly gone up for sleep right? Well you know I had told you earlier how my weekend was so hectic and physically exhausting? I needed to sleep and then it happened, while I was trying to stay awake, my son came to me, in the bedroom and lay on the bed. I had put the little girl on her stomach on the bed too and it was time for her to sleep.

Since she was fed full, it didn’t take long for her to doze off. I simply told my son to lie down on the bed and sleep and the next thing I know, all three of us were in dreamland. We slept for about four hours at a stretch- 11.30am to 3pm. Oh, how refreshing. Of course by the time we all woke up, I had to prepare lunch for the children. And it didn’t take long for the “afternoon shift” person to come take over.

For the next few days (I’m really praying they are short), I will be taking you through the memoirs of a babysitting father.

Enjoy!

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