Our Time with Jax

This is my 5 month-old grand nephew, Jax.  The other day his mom and aunties went to a Billy Talent concert and, because 2 of them are from out of town, I got to spend some time taking care of the little guy.  I haven't had a baby to take care of since my youngest was a baby, and that was 14 years ago!
 
It went very well, considering it was the first time that he and I met.  But I knew that we were going to be great friends by the end of it all.  He doesn't like a sling, according to his mom.  But after the first hour of walking him around the house to show him stuff and keep him entertained, I decided that the sling really wasn't for him.  It was for me. So I made a sling out of a massage table sheet that I had.  Then the challenge was to figure out which way he would rest in it best.  After a number of configurations, he finally decided that he liked having his face to my chest the most.  Most likely he liked the sound of the heart beat.  Or maybe he just didn't trust me enough to let me out of his sight.  It is hard to tell.

By the end of the evening he was very ready for his mom to return.  And she did.  Of course, he was all smiles and giggles for her.  That made me feel good.  I didn't want her to feel bad about leaving him with me.  And really, he is a very easy baby.  Babies cry.  Sometimes they get upset for reasons other than fear, like hunger, teething, gas, wet diapers etc.  So once all those things were covered in the arsenal of supplies that she left me, he was able to let out a really good vomit of his bottled breast milk (all over me I might add!) and then get on with having fun singing and dancing (wait a minute....that was ME) and sleeping (that was him).  I also had to have a little talk with him about his tendency to flirt with my girl.  Of course, he is related to me, so I knew that everything that I had to say about that was going to be completely ignored.

I love babies.  They smell good (most of the time) and they are fun to cuddle and kiss and buzz with the lips.  Their giggles are completely contagious and they tend to think that I am the oddest thing that they have ever seen.  And they would be right about that.