The Babysitters

The Babysitters

“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.”

Mary Poppins

By all accounts, my cousin Nancy was a precious baby. She was the first of the twelve cousins of my generation. So it took six or seven months for Aunt Dolores to trust Uncle John and his brother Harry, my dad, to watch over Nancy while she and my mom went out shopping.

Everything went smoothly for a while, mostly because Nancy was asleep, but when she woke up, she needed changing. The brothers managed to do that, but she just wouldn’t stop crying. They tried rocking her, walking her, peek-a-boo, and the bottle. Nothing worked. She just kept crying.

So they were quite relieved when Aunt Dolores and my mom came back to rescue them. And it only took a few moments for the ladies to discover the problem. When the brothers changed Nancy’s diaper, they had slightly pinned it through her skin.

She recovered quickly, as did Aunt Dolores, but it was a while longer before the brothers were allowed to babysit again.