Here's the deal: for some reason our daughter, who had never until this point in her life shown even the slightest inclination to have anything to do with any babies at any time, decided that she wanted to take Infant Care. She was really excited about the whole "we get to bring home a robot baby and keep it!" thing.
You know those things: they're the ones that they give troubled teenagers to convince them that they don't want to have children too early. You see them on top-flight shows like Oprah or Maury Povich, and occasionally they're used as weapons on Jerry Springer (God rest his smutty soul).
It occurs to me that we had a live infant in our house once, one that she was even related to, and she did exactly two things during his infancy to help: diddly and squat. So where this feeling came from, I have no idea.
So on Friday the girls stayed over at J's house, and then on Saturday they came over to spend the day with us. I immediately noticed two things:
1 - Lucas was a handful, much as I remember our infants being (when I wake up in a cold sweat from one of my many nightmares that we've had a third). He cried for no reason, and was difficult to comfort. Except for the stink, and the fluid discharge, they pretty much nailed what it was like to have a baby.
2 - Victoria is a father, because she spent a lot of time watching J work, or saying "you do this because you do it better" or saying "you take care of it because I have to go to the bathroom." So apparently she was paying attention when her brother was a child, which makes me proud to have passed on some of the knowledge I picked up from my old man.
The best part of Lucas was that we weren't allowed to help - they had these ID bracelets that they had to scan him with before they helped him, which meant that as much as we might like to step in, we just had to watch dotingly as they struggled to succeed, like any good grandparent. Or at least, that's what I remember my children's grandparents doing (kidding!)
Want to see two pre-teens freak out? Have their electronic baby suddenly stop while they're fiddling with it, and when they wonder what's wrong, suggest "maybe you just killed it." Man, that was hiliarous. They spent about thirty minutes hovering over it, wringing their hands, until finally it cooed and they were so happy it was alive they forgot all about their desserts, which means I got three helpings.
On Sunday, William and I escaped to church, leaving a very exhausted group behind at the house (Lucas needs to be fed at 5 AM). I have never seen him more spiritually engaged - he asked if he could be baptized and then ordained and then if we could "shop around" to see if any other churches met during Sunday afternoon. But alas, eventually we had to go home, and then J had to go home, leaving us...
ALONE!
On the up side, after a day alone with Lucas, Victoria is not in any hurry to have children. I caught her looking up "sterilization" on Google, actually, and I had to intervene in hopes that I might be able to have grandchildren again someday. I think I've back-filled the damage, but I probably won't know for certain for another 2 years or so.
On the down side, man can that kid cry. I think he's got plastic colic or something.
This morning, after Angela finally dynamited Victoria out of bed, she laid back down fully dressed "just to rest for a second." Thirty minutes later Angela had to drag her out of bed again by the hair, and the only reason that Vic ever actually got up was that William threatened to flush Lucas down the toilet, and if he went down the tubes Vic would get a bad grade, and taht's a fate worse than death for her. So up she got.
That, and once she got to school she could put him in "day care" which meant that he wouldn't be with her any more. I'm pretty sure all my grandchildren will be latch-key kids, or at least raised in my attic.
So now he's over at his other mother's house, and our house is empty, and he's not coming back. I think we're all glad. But at least we got a picture:
ps: Victoria wants to know if, having had the first great-grandchild, she's now in line for a larger portion of the will. How about it, great-grandpa?
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