Baby Sitting

In all these years, I have never tried (and have never been to allowed to try!) my hand at baby-sitting. It happened when my cousin and his wife had to go out and the baby's grandparents (my uncle n aunt) werent in town. We lived a few blocks away from them and they were more than happy to entrust the 3 month old under my care...!! I was delighted to see my niece, peacefully asleep, with that occasional bewitching smile that only babies are capable of..I hoped she'd play the 'good kid' for another 4-5 hours until her mom arrived...

I left her on the bed and closed the door gently so she wouldnt get disturbed..! I settled down with a book and soft music...Within 20 minutes, the phone yelled..It was my cousin..'Is she fine?!! Any problem..?!'..'None at all..cool it Karthik..I'll take care..'He mumbled something about me 'updating him on her status every half an hour..''Sure..Will do..'I quipped...I heard her crying and went to check what was wrong...The phone in the bedroom had awoken her...I gently patted her and she resumed sleeping...I disconnected that phone..just in case..!

Things were fine for another hour or so..With calls from all relatives who lived in Chennai, wanting to know 'how she was doing..' All of a sudden, my niece let out a heart wrenching scream..and continued modulating it at different pitches...! No amount of pacifying helped..'Must be hunger'..I thought and thrust the milk bottle into her mouth...Her wailing stopped..She was then awake for a while..and I tried amusing her with all those toys that my cousin had brought..!! She wasn't impressed...She looked at me with small, sharp eyes that seemed to predict another wailing session...!

Sure enough, the next round started..I took her out of the bed and held her for a while..! She showed signs of regaining her composure...and then I took her out to the balcony, hoping some traffic out on the roads would distract her...My timing was bad, for, there was a huge water tanker on the main road..honking terribly. This scared everything out of the baby and she screamed all the more...I quickly took her inside...

It took ages to make my niece smile..SMILE...it was worth SO much..basically making a big fool of myself...I 'talked' to her animatedly...Am sure she didnt understand one bit of all that I blabbered...I lifted her up and down, tried playing some songs, played all the ringtones I wished were never composed in the first place and many more...At the end of it all, she took pity on me and treated me to one of those angelic smiles reserved for great occasions...! I let out a sigh of relief..!

She decided to let me rest for a while and fell asleep right on my lap...I sat still, scared to put her on the bed, lest I had to go through the smile-exercise again...After what seemed like a decade, the calling bell rang and I picked up the kid to get the door...My mom had barely walked in, when I thrust the about-to-wail kid into her hands...