Since I’m self-employed, Friday really has no special meaning for me. In fact, I usually feel a bit panicky on Fridays, since it means that another week has slipped past me without my accomplishing as much as I’d hoped. Not only that but Friday means the weekend is coming and weekends are just days when everyone gets in my way instead of being safely packed away at their jobs where they belong.
I can’t tell you how much I love being able to set my own hours, work in my pajamas and avoid anything resembling office politics but sometimes I think the very best thing about self-employment is having the whole world to myself five days a week. No traffic, no crowds. I rarely have to set foot in a store on a weekend. In fact, I spend most weekends up in my studio, since everywhere else is crowded with humanity running the errands they can’t do during the week. Standing in lines is my least favorite thing to do so I avoid it whenever possible.
But this Friday, I agreed to come up to Katie and Adam’s place and watch the babies while their nanny took a long weekend vacation.
It’s fairly warm out today; nearly 50. It would have been nice to get one more day of plein air painting under my belt before snow flies but it’s raining, so that’s off the table anyway. Not that it would have mattered: I can paint outside for the rest of my life; BoopityBoop are only going to be babies for a little while longer.
I arrived midmorning and they were playing in the living room. In the week since I was last up here, Katie and Adam have baby-proofed the upstairs. The leaning set of shelves filled with glassware, which was naturally the girls’ favorite climbing toy, is gone; the outlets are all covered and best of all, a gate has been installed which spans the entire opening to the living room. The extremely mobile babies can no longer just charge into the kitchen or under the dining room table, where all the best stuff is!
Boopity learned about jalapenos the hard way. Babalouie could have warned her; over a year ago, Coach let him have a bite of one…to this day, if Zack is eating ice cream or anything else Babalouie shows interest in, Zack just offers him a taste saying “it’s jalapeno!” and Babalouie declines. Unfortunately, Boopity wouldn’t have understood and doesn’t know that it was the shard she shoved in her mouth that made her nose run and her head hurt. Chugging her bottle helped.
We spent the day in the living room, behind the fence, where only fun stuff exists. Kaddis, the wonder dog, joined us for a while. She played fetch with Boopity, the two of them wrestling over a toy Boopity made herself: a plastic water bottle with beads and feathers inside and the top glued on. It’s a great, crunchy rattle and Both girls and the dog love it and I’ve never heard Boopity laugh so hard as she did while playing with the dog. Kaddis is tied with Jimmer for Best Dog Alive. Both dogs act instinctively know that protecting, caring for and gently playing with the kids is their prime directive. When Xena was BoopityBoop’s age, she tried to ride Jimmer like a horse. Jimmer was smart enough to just lay there while the baby bounced, holding onto her ears like reins. Kaddis’s tail is unfortunately the exact distance off the ground as the babies when they’re sitting up, so she frequently whips their faces, which they don’t care for but she’s so happy to be with them she can’t help wagging. I think it encourages them to get on their feet. They’ve been crawling for a couple of weeks now and at the rate they’re progressing, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re walking by Christmas. It’s hard to believe they’re coming up on 11 months.
Boop is out of the helmet: her head is now perfect.
I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart but it’s easy: they don’t look at all alike to me!
Boop is also eating like a champ. Turns out, she really likes real food! Boopity is far pickier, now that the menu has some variations and the result is that Boop is quickly making up that half pound difference that’s been dogging her since the two of them were born.
Spending the day with them was a blast. They took an hour long nap before lunch and another, longer nap midafternoon, so I was able to eat my own lunch and read my book for a little while. When they were awake, all they did was play with me, the dog and each other. I’ve never known such easy going babies. Maybe the fact that they have each other to play with makes them easier. I don’t know. It’s not like they even seem to acknowledge each other but they always wind up in the same place, doing the same thing. When they do notice each other, it’s usually with delight and laughter.
Pretty soon, they’ll be old enough for cocoa bottles. Boy, do I want to be there when that happens.
Life is good, girls. Life is good.