Dogs and babysitting

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I get to babysit my friend KrisAn's newborn baby girl, Maddie. She is such a cute baby, and sooo good! Seriously, I hope my baby is as good as her! She's so easy to babysit because she only cries when she's hungry or needs her diaper changed. Plus, being a newborn and all, she sleeps a lot. And when she's awake, she's pretty content chilling in her bouncer or on my lap. Not to mention she's about the size of a football, so carrying her around is pretty easy (especially on my sensitive pregnant back, so I like that!).

Anyway, I've been excited to start watching Maddie for quite some time, for a number of reasons. However, I must admit that one of those reasons is because it's a great opportunity to train my dogs to get used to a baby in the house (twice week is a good starting point to work up to 24/7). I've babysat my niece Lindy a few times, and they always did well with her, but she's a lot older than a newborn and more interactive. Not to mention she cries less. Don't get me wrong, Maddie doesn't cry much, but she does need to eat and have her diaper changed every 2 hours, so when I have her 8 hours, that means she's bound to cry at least 4 or 5 times during the day. And sometimes it has to be for a couple minutes while I make her bottle or get her diaper changed.

Also, the dogs need to be much quieter with a newborn then they need to be with a 7 month old. Since when I would watch Lindy, she'd sleep for maybe an hour at the most during her stay, and usually in my bed, that meant the dogs could still bark and play in the house without disturbing the baby's nap. With Maddie however, she sleeps in the living room or kitchen (depending on which room I'm in at the moment) and she sleeps most of the day, which means the dogs have to be quiet in the house most of the day.

Staying quiet most of the day is pretty easy for Shady. She's 7 years old, so she likes to sleep just as much as Maddie. Even though Shady is actually the barker in the house, I can get her to stop barking in just a few seconds. Rolo, on the other hand, is a little different story. She's still a puppy at heart, even though she's now a year and half old. Her idea of a good day, is one in which she gets to play 80%, eat 10% and sleep 10%. Not to mention she likes to pretend she's tough and play gaurd dog any time someone comes to close to the house. She could play fetch all day and never get tired of it (just ask the Doggy Day Camp at PetsMart, they had to switch off on employees all day long with her because she was wearing them out). However, even with all of her energy, Rolo is doing great! And giving me a lot of funny moments.

The first time Maddie came, she was asleep in her car seat. So I set the car seat on the sofa and intended to just let her sleep, but Rolo had other ideas. She sniffed the car seat and realized there was a kid in there and got excited (she loves kids because they usually play with her much longer than adults). So of course Rolo runs to get her ball, and because she can't reach into Maddie's car seat to give her the ball (not without getting on the sofa, which she can't do without being invited) she sets the ball next to the car seat and sat starring at Maddie waiting for her to throw it. When Maddie didn't throw the ball (because if she had I'm pretty sure she'd be in some kind of record book and KrisAn should sign her up for baseball ASAP) Rolo whined a little, then nudged the ball closer to the car seat. After a few more seconds of the ball just sitting there (and me laughing at Rolo) she then licked the car seat, hoping that would entice Maddie to throw the ball (who can turn down a kiss, right?). Still no throwing, so then she starts to paw at the ball, trying to show Maddie that she was supposed to pick it up. Finally, after a few more minutes of this (and a few more laughs from me) I took pity on Rolo and grabbed the ball and threw it for her. What did this champion fetch player do you ask, bring it back to me in a hurry? No; she brought it right back to Maddie and went through the whole process all over again. Afterall, Maddie is cuter and smells better than me, and SHE is who Rolo wanted to play with.