Natural Birth Control and Its Antidotes

Just to start off, the last week and a half have been much more calm and accident-free, so we are happy. We are submitting a claim to have the car fixed, so I will be driving a rental for a few days--I am excited! Unfortunately, as detailed as these stories are, I don't have any pictures to go with them--sorry!

Last week, though, I babysat for a couple in our ward. They have a 3-year old boy, Mason, who is full of energy and lots of fun, and Anna, a little girl who just turned 1. A disclaimer about the following story: Anna is really a cute girl and is normally not a problem.... This was the first time for me to babysit them, so I was still getting to know the kids and the way things work around their house. We ate dinner and then played for a little while when Pret came over to hang out with us before leaving to do a few other things. At 8, I started getting them ready for bed. The parents mentioned Anna would take a bottle for a bit, go to sleep for about 45 minutes and then wake back up, but i was to just give her the bottle and she should be fine. So I got Anna to sleep while Mason cried for his mom (he hadn't had a nap, so I figured he might be a bit harder to deal with.) Finally I got Mason to sleep with relatively no trouble once the crying stopped.

I checked on Anna before going out to the living room to read the book I had brought. I had read about 4 pages before I heard her crying. I figured I would be able to rock her with her bottle for a few minutes and quickly return. But alas, things didn't go quite as planned... I tried to give her the bottle, but she pushed it away (I had no idea 1-year-olds had such a mind of their own!), I tried singing songs, but she cried through me, we tried looking at the family picture, but all she would say is, "Mamamamamama..." After about an hour, I remembered what worked for my neice, Lauren, at this age and whipped out my cell phone for her to play with. That pacified her a little, but she still whimpered a little. I tried taking her back into her room and pulled some toys off the shelf, but she wasn't too interested in those. The books, on the other hand, were a sucess! That is the only way that we made it through the last 30 minutes (after her parents were about 15 minutes later than planned.) I don't think I have seen a child as excited as she was as she heard the garage door open which meant salvation!

Needless to say, I went home and crashed, so much so that I could barely mumble a hello to Pret when he got home about 15 minutes later. There goes my story of the best NATURAL BIRTH CONTROL (NBC) EVER! Pret and I definitely are not ready for kids, at least not when I have to be up at 6:30 the next morning. Pret did save me, though, as I left the kitchen a disaster when I left for the babysitting appointment as I had to drop off dinner to my visiting teachee who had just had a baby, but when I came home it looked fabulous!!

The baby mentioned in the previous sentence and the one that we got to visit last night (along with many others we have encountered recently, to make sure that we are not offending any of our other friends with children...) luckily are the antidotes to the NBC! One of Pret's mission companions is married and has a little boy about 9 months old. We ate dinner with them last night and he is a doll! He was falling asleep while eating dinner and Pret would not stop laughing at him. I already feel sorry for our kids! He has also recently discovered his tongue, so he was blowing raspberries the whole night. He loves being kissed on the neck, so I had fun necking with a 9-month-old!

Anyway, Pret and I were again discussing last night that we are not ready for kids. We are still trying to figure out what we are doing with our own lives, let alone adding another life to the mix!