First babysitter

I took 10 weeks "off" (I HATE calling it off when talking about maternity leave. You hear everyone ask, "how long are you off?" I used to say this too and then I became a Mom and realized I was working harder than ever in my life and the first 5 weeks I lived on so little sleep, I would forget coming home. Like be in the driveway and not remember going to Kroger, but I had the bags to prove it.) and then I went back to work. I returned toward the end of the year and there is so much testing going on you might be lucky to get 2 hours of teaching in a day. For kids, parents, and almost everyone, total waste of time but for my personal benefit, it was really nice. I was able to go the restroom whenever I wanted, have lunch set at a specific time and interact with adults. Super, duper glamours. 

Austin stayed with grandma 4 days a week and our family friend Ms. Alicia one day. Ms. Alicia would stay all day at our house and Grandma would come over every morning so we never would interrupt the sacred long morning nap. Other times, Ben and Dad watched Austin but I'm afraid we have fallen into the "only family has ever watched our baby" scenario... only because we could. We are lucky to have the first grandchild AND have a slew of family close. It wasn't some control thing, people actually called and offered. "Hey, want me to come over so you can run some errands by yourself?" literally brought me to tears one day. 

So after those 6 weeks of working, I was off again for my glorious summer. Grandma has watched him twice and will have to next week when I accidentally signed up for a flipping WEEK of professional development and cannot get out of it because the county paid for it, ugh. But for the most part I've been pretty happy being with the babe so I haven't had too many reasons to need someone to watch him. 

Recently, I noticed him starting to cry at people, like my friends, etc when they held him. I thought maybe I have been around him too much and so we started going out more and seeing more people. Since then, I thought he had chilled and re-awarded myself Mom of the year. Then yesterday, the babysitter who will be watching Austin 2 days a week came over and my life was over. 

Not Austin but an unhappy baby.

She is adorable, sweet, and babysits all over town. She smiles big at Austin and says sweet things to him in the appropriate baby pitch. He seems interested and content so I think this will go very well. I hold him and she looks at him, he looks at her, and we are golden. Then I give him to her to hold and he starts crying. I quickly take him back and we do this back and forth thing for about 20 minutes. Finally the babysitter basically tells me to leave and I remember from my extensive days of babysitting how annoying it was when the parents wouldn't just leave. I got in the car with my friend Kelly and we headed off to a salon. I picked a place I don't frequent often because I wanted to be able to book it home in less than 7 minutes. We get there and I text babysitter, "sorry to bug you but will you text me and tell me how it is going" she texts back "no problem, just reading some books". I am SO relieved. We got our toes done and enjoy life. Then about 45 minutes later, I get a text "he still doesn't seem happy or want to eat". Thank God these ladies work quick. I risk ruining my pedi to get to the car and book it home. I can hear the wailing from outside and literally half of me wanted to just tear off the door, but then I remembered I have no upper body strength. I walk in and Austin's entire outfit is covered with tears and snot and he gives me the absolute most pitiful look I've ever seen. WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME?!?!? It literally tore my hear out. I grabbed my baby and promised to never leave again. Of course this is not true so not only have I left and traumatized my child, now I'm a liar. Awesome. The rest of the night was rough, too. He was so upset, he ate and then took an hour to put down to bed, which usually takes no longer than 5 minutes. Oh, we had 3 kid-free guests over and I'm pretty sure they will never. ever. ever procreate. Sorry 

We decided the babysitter is going to come over once a week until I go back to work and hope to God Austin warms up to her. I really don't know what else to do, I just hope it works before she quits and Austin has to go to the first ever baby therapy group session.

Nice advice is welcome, but I swear if you give me some bs comment about should have left him with someone else before I will literally slap you in the face and bully you on social media.

Tootles!

For Natalie's News this has been, Natalie-Corinne.