Babysitting, Eva and David

BABYSITTING

We have three daughters in law, none of these three were the type to held their mother in law close to their bossom and say,I will always be kind to her, who is expecting this will soon be disillusioned. It is more like: don’t bother me and I will not bother you. In Brussels they would be envious to reach this kind of understanding.
Very great was my surprise, when I was asked to take care of my youngest son’s daughter, my third grandchild who lives in the same village as we do. I felt honored that they had so much faith in me (stupid, stupid). It had to be permanent for at least a couple of years. Though, I was very pleased and happy that that beautiful baby was mine alone one day weekly, I was also afraid for the responsibility of such a small human being, who would be completely depending from us, but also overjoyed in a way, again taking care of a baby now on this age in my life, to start again, was something I never had expected.
We bought a little cot, mattress, trolley, etc., which was fun but also expensive. Other things were purchased, such as a drinking cup, diapers and much more. My life started again. And then there she was for the first time, the sweat was pouring down on me at the first diaper change, the first bottle, the burp, etc. Everything had to be on time, also the sleeping, this especially was difficult for me, every 6 minutes I went to check if she was okay. On one of her shows Oprah had talked about SIDS and this had made me anxious. After 1½ years my blood pressure was so high, that the doctor suggested, to look after her only half days, which I didn’t do at first, I rather took pills. We managed to do it for almost 3 years, then she went to the crèche (day nursery) in the mornings until one o’clock and at half past 1 we were there every week, thrilled to take here home. I loved the time I spend with her, together with Willem, it was our baby on that day and we hugged her a lot. We couldn’t get enough of our dear little Eva. We bought her lots of things, it was great to be able to spoil her. We played with dolls, kitchens, a doll house, it was wonderful. We enjoyed the company of this little girl very much. She had trouble sleeping, just like her father used to. So in the afternoon around 2 p.m. we went for a drive in the car with the baby on my lap and sure enough after 15 minutes she fell asleep and we went somewhere quiet near the water watching sailboats. When my arm went to sleep, Willem took her over carefully and so she slept for 2 hours in a row. When she became too old for this and didn’t sleep anymore in the afternoons, we went to all the playgrounds on the island, to all garden centers, to the beaches and also to the children’s carnival, a big hall with inflatable equipment, slides and other inflatables. After these outings we ate pancakes and drank something. We always had a delightful time. In those 14 years we spent many hours running, climbing and panting on our bare feet after Eva. In the evenings we were broken and drained, but still we enjoyed it enormously having her and eating ice cream with her. In all those years she never cried once when being with us. She never had a tiny accident nothing at all.
But now at 76 years, with also her lovely little brother present,it is, although I find it very enteraining, sometimes a little too much for us. I start dreading the babysitting when I am not feeling good or we are a little bit sick and tired. That obligation each week is making it diffucult, because the parents are counting on us, but we try to do it as long as we can and I hope we can manage to do it for one or to years more. I love these grandchildren so much, that I also must learn to let go. Now after almost 14 years the nanny time is over and I hope to enjoy the delightful company of these two children for a long long time in a different way.
I think that now the time has come that we can say, when asked to babysit: yes, now we are feeling fine and we can take care of them this evening or that afternoon. We will always be there for these two. But still we are having the bigger David and Eva every tuesday after school, but when they just drop by we love it the most.
Dinky