Babysitting

My dad called me the other night to ask if I could watch my nephew this morning. My sister had a funeral to go to, and my dad had some work to do on the brewery. My nephew is very high energy, so watching him can be somewhat draining. He's also deaf, and though he can hear some with the help of his cochlear implant, our communication is definitely affected, which also makes watching him a bit draining. But we were spending the morning at Bobby's parents' house where there are kids' toys, and Malachy adores Bobby's sister. I knew that with the help that we could handle him for the morning.

Bobby and I picked Emma up this morning and went to his parents' house. Malachy had just been dropped off, and he spent the morning following Emma around. He discovered the cabinet with all the DVDs and promptly pulled out the Incredibles and wanted to put it on. He sat down in the middle of the living room floor, looked at Emma, and patted the floor next to him. She sat down, and he flipped around to laying on the floor, chin in hands, glanced over at Emma and gave a big smile. He was clearly a bit smitten.

The morning was good, and a little before it was time to leave, Brian brought Caelyn and Chase over. Caelyn just stared at him in wonderment. Malachy sat in the little doll stroller, and Caelyn pushed him around; they stared out the sliding glass door at Emma, and then Caelyn walked up to where Malachy was sitting in the stroller, grabbed his head, and planted a kiss on him. Not a little kiss either - she just held there until I started worrying that she was going to bite him (she does that sometimes). The whole situation was like one of those images you see on those black & white cards with the kids in grown up clothes.

They chased each other around the couch for a bit, and as Malachy and Caelyn both tend to do, they got a little wild. It was approaching the time we had to leave and I was starting to worry that I would have trouble pulling Malachy away. But I grabbed on to him, made him look at me, and signed "You & me, go see grandpa."

His eyes got big, he smiled with excitement, and signed back, "Grandpa?" I nodded.

He was off the couch and zipping up his sweater and getting his backpack before I had time to gather my things. He was not about to be the one holding us back from seeing grandpa. When we all piled into the car and he realized Emma was coming too, he gave another big smile. Quite the ladies' man today.

When we got to the house, Emma wanted to play Lego Star Wars, and Malachy grabbed one of the controllers. They are wireless and we left his turned off, but he sat there playing with the buttons and playing right alongside her. When my dad met us at our house, he tapped Malachy on the shoulder, and Malachy dropped his controller and ran into my dad's arms. He didn't care if he stayed with us or if they left, as long as he got to stay with grandpa...