Babysitting Team

Our family has been looking forward to today all week long--ever since Susan's cousin Todd phoned to see if we'd be available to babysit Todd and Trista's almost-seven-month-old son, Trae, overnight tonight. Suzanna, who just recently took some elective classes at school on babysitting, immediately briefed her sisters on the basics, and they all three began to make plans for Trae's stay in our home. Throughout the afternoon today, they peppered Susan with inquiries about how much longer it would be before Trae's arrival. They were excited.

And so were we. It's been many years since Susan and I have had diapers to change and bottles to make and baby rattles to shake, and it was fun to re-experience that again tonight. It was fun, too, to watch the girls interact with Trae and to observe their seriousness about the task of caring for a baby and to hear their reflections (e.g., Hillary, while rocking Trae quietly: "When he grabs my thumb, it's almost as though he were my very own baby"). Suzanna has a sore throat, so she gamely kept her distance most of the night but offered advice from afar to her siblings. Abigail and Hillary vied for time with Trae, leaving Susan and me with just moments to enjoy feeding him and tickling him and holding him.

Trae is a smiley little guy, very patient with the onslaught of affection from our kids and easily acclimated to an unfamiliar house with so many strange faces (one of which is bearded!!). Trista will pick him up in the morning before we leave for Sunday school and church, but for now he's sleeping soundly in our bedroom. Here are some highlights from his first night at the Mobergs':

Tactile Trae gets to know the unfamiliar bearded dude.

Trae finds his toes to be entertaining--and is still limber enough to stick them in his mouth, should he care to.

Abigail changes Trae's diaper following Suzanna's instructions while I monitor Trae's safety throughout the procedure.

Hillary feeds Trae while seated in the very rocker in which her own parents often fed her as a baby! That was only six years ago . . .

Ditto Abigail, although that was eight years ago. She's very "in the moment." It's difficult not to be at peace with a content baby in one's arms!

Suzanna, Abigail, and Hillary keep a collective watchful eye on Trae, who is on the verge of entering Slumber Land (the state of consciousness, not the furniture store).

Tidbits

(1) Today was a nice change of pace for me at work. Three colleagues and I had an administrative retreat off campus. We booked a conference room at the Grand Dakota Lodge, a local conference center. We ordered breakfast and ate while we worked, doing the same again for dinner at noon. We spent the whole day reflecting on past and current practice and strategizing for the future of our unit at the university, all while escaping the daily routine and setting with its interruptions to sustained, deliberate thought and creativity. We even set aside time for reading and discussion of scholarly articles for professional development. It was refreshing and team-building!

(2) Although I was away from campus today, Suzanna was not! She and her class hiked over from their elementary school to the science building to join one of the natural sciences professors for some fun experiments. One involved putting something into a big pot placed underneath an empty littler pot and waiting for colorful flames to spontaneously burst forth from the empty smaller pot. Another dealt with a pickle through which the professor got electricity to travel, lighting up the pickle. He also dipped a copper penny into something that turned it silver and then into something else that turned it gold. His assistant added potassium to a bucket of ice, which started the ice on fire. Each child in Suzanna's class got to put vinegar and baking soda inside an uninflated balloon, which they sealed and then pounded; the friction mixed and heated up the vinegar and baking soda, which caused the balloon to inflate! I asked Suzanna if she were interested in becoming a scientist, and she said "no." I asked her why not. She said, "Because I'll be too busy doing things that I really want to do, like being a doctor and a singer."

(3) Abigail's most recent "thing": to hide about the house and wait to be noticed (as missing) and/or to be found. I walked upstairs to find her butt in hot pink sweatpants glaring out from underneath the dining room table. She was huddling silently in a 1950s public school atomic bomb drill position, just waiting for no one in particular to say, "Where's Abigail?" so that she could burst forth with a "Boo!" and surprise them. Instead, I said, "Hi, Abigail" and kept on walking. Later I spied her bright pink pajama-clad legs sticking out from under the coffee table in the living room. "Hi, Abigail" again. She's got patience, for sure, but she could use some advice RE: camouflage.

(4) At school Hillary has made something for me for Valentine's Day. I know this because several times she has approached me with something hidden behind her back, asking me, "Aren't you eager to know what I made for you for Valentine's Day?" I tell her that she should wait until next week to give it to me, whereupon she reiterates that I must be too curious to wait that long. "Nope, I'm not," I reply, and ve-e-ery reluctantly she returns to her bedroom with whatever it is until a few hours have passed and she spies it in her room once more. Then the procedure repeats.

(5) I'm reading a book via e-mail. Each day, a portion of the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton arrives in my inbox, per my request. I went to Daily Lit and found a book that I wanted to (re)read--and that was free (most of them on the site are, actually)--and signed up to have the book e-mailed to me in short sections, easy enough to read as they arrive daily. I loved the book when I read it in high school, and I'm pretty sure we have it in hard copy, too. I just wanted to try this new electronic method of reading a book. I still prefer to hold a physical book, but this system helps me control my pace and reminds me daily to keep reading.

Super Bowl-of-Water Sunday

Today was a very important day in the "life" of Sophie Olivia Moberg, Suzanna's relatively new baby doll. No, not her first-ever Super Bowl on TV. Today was the day that she was baptized! Yes, you read that correctly.

Recent baptisms in church sparked the idea in Suzanna's mind that her own baby ought to be baptized. She asked if we could baptize Sophie at home, and we agreed. Suzanna has waited patiently as we've moved the baptism day from the original date that she chose to the next day to the next . . . until, finally, today we felt we should do it after church (at which there was yet another baptism).

When we got home, we stayed in our church clothes, and Suzanna dressed Sophie in the baptism gown and bonnet that she, Abigail, and Hillary each wore for their own baptisms. To appear pastoral, I slipped into the Jedi robe that Susan created for our recent costume party, and Susan filled a shallow pasta bowl with some water and set out a white towel to dab Sophie's head after the event. When Suzanna and Sophie appeared in the living room for the baptism, Suzanna was carrying her large stuffed reindeer, Rudolph, who was wearing the men's sport coat that had been part of Suzanna's Halloween costume. She set Rudolph down beside her and Sophie, and we all looked at Rudolph quizzically. But it was so obvious once Suzanna explained it: You can't have a baby without a dad, and he needs to be at the baptism, too. (Fortunately, Sophie takes after her mom in appearance.)

We started the service at the piano, where I played--and we all sang--both verses of the hymn "All Who Believe and Are Baptized." Then I led the service of Holy Baptism as printed in the hymnal, and Abigail and Hillary served as godparents, saying the "I do"s wherever the printed service indicated that the sponsors should respond. Susan played photographer, standing at the far end of the living room and trying to stifle her giggles to avoid disrupting the otherwise solemn service and to prevent all the photos from turning out blurry.

Godparents Abigail and Hillary flank the happy family: parents Rudolph and Suzanna with Sophie Olivia.

Hillary is filled with the Holy Spirit, evidently, during the singing of the hymn. Rudolph is amazed, too; look at how he's staring at her. I don't know what Abigail is staring at. Sophie appears to be in the gut-buster hold by her mommy.

The solemn ceremony begins.

The girls were completely "into" the moment, especially when it came time to douse Sophie's head with water from the pasta bowl. I suggested holding the stiff doll by its ankles and dipping it head-first like a tortilla chip into salsa, but Suzanna would have none of it. Instead we treated Sophie like a real baby, and she didn't cry at all when I gently splashed water on her head and then dabbed it dry with the kitchen towel. I reminded Suzanna and Rudolph, too, that each February 3rd henceforth, they ought to light a candle in honor of Sophie Olivia's baptismal anniversary and talk to her about this special day and its meaning for her. Suzanna agreed; Rudolph stared blankly ahead. Deadbeat dad.

"Sophie Olivia, I baptize you in the name of the Father [splash] and of the Son [splash] and of the Holy Spirit [splash]. Amen."

The post-baptismal head dabbing with the sacramental kitchen towel.

At our previous church, the pastors carry newly baptized babies up and down the middle aisle so that all congregants can get a good look while the congregation sings "Jesus Loves Me," a tradition that we carried out with Sophie, too. We ended with a family photo (Suzanna + Rudolph + Sophie) with the pastor (me), presumably for Sophie's scrapbook. All three girls were delighted to have participated, and Susan and I were delighted when it was over and we could stop biting the insides of our cheeks. It's certainly a day none of us is likely to forget soon!

"Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so."

Sophie Olivia, child of God, along with parents Suzanna and Rudolph and pastor Daddy.