The baby

 

I’ve never really been one for babies. They always strike me as far too wobbly and breakable. They are noisy, make a mess and need to be constantly watched.  If someone offers me a baby to hold I’m likely to go in the opposite direction. My mother though never had that problem. There’s two years between me and my younger brother and ten months between him and my youngest brother. This means that at some point she had three children under 5 for quite a while. She managed fine. Even when she started teacher training college when I was about 5. Since then she worked as a primary teacher until she took early retirement at 55. She juggled kindergarten, primary, a divorce and we all turned out fine.

I never really thought I’d be happy to have a baby around every day. However with the arrival of Erin, I’ve learnt the value of babies. Another carer who I was reading the other day said that she could never understand why old people’s homes and creches were not near each other. Old people and babies get on fine.  One’s with Alzheimer’s even more so.  My mum and Erin, who is now 11 months, are a case in point.

 I remember when it struck me that my mum’s carer must be pregnant. She was getting bigger and bigger and I could no longer really ignore it. For some reason she avoided telling me. But eventually I had to ask.  When it was confirmed, I was dreading the day when she wouldn’t be working for me anymore because of the baby. However that’s not what happened. She left on the Friday, on the Saturday morning she had the baby, then she had about 6 weeks off and was back at work, baby in tow. And he is a charmer. One of the happiest babies I’ve come across.  The only time he’s not smiling is when he’s sleeping.

So Erin arrives in the morning with his mum and stays with her all day. I come home at lunchtime and there’s the baby in the middle of the living room floor and my mum on the couch involved in some engrossing activity with him. He wriggles, he wobbles about, he watches the fan, he responds to my mum, he smiles when she talks to him. We’ve gone through the sitting up stage, the crawling all over the place stage and we are currently in the standing but very wobbly and often falling forwards or backwards stage.  Mum has been mesmerised by them all.  And then there’s Baby TV. Now that’s a new one for me. Would never have dreamt such a thing existed. It’s quite hypnotic and puts me to sleep, but has a very pleasant effect on the baby and my mum.

Mum worries about him too. Our living room has had to be rearranged. Mum thought the baby could pull the stools down on top of himself so they had to go. She was probably right. Things are being moved higher and higher up. Potential tunnels are being blocked. These days he can fairly move around the living room. Mum follows on hands and knees to make sure he doesn’t bump his head on things he has a habit of going under.  They  make quite a sight.   This is the woman who usually has trouble getting herself out of a seat.  Both me and Shamalee used to get into a panic about her being able to get back up again off the floor. But she manages, slowly and carefully. Shamalee filmed the whole thing with her phone. Proof that when there’s a will there is flexibility and strength.