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I was so lucky to be the only one off today. Rose worked every day as a Kindergarten teacher, so she rarely had to take up kiddo care (though she probably would have enjoyed it). Edward only worked 3 days a week doing 12 hour shifts in Urgent Care, but today was one of his shift days. Bella was off from her English teaching job at the high school but that was only so she could do E-saw training or something like that. Jasper had a full schedule of patients at his psychiatry clinic. And Alice was swamped with final preparations for a wedding this weekend. Most days, the girls would go to preschool, but since they weren’t yet old enough for VPK, my siblings had decided to only do part time care, only sending them 3 days a week. And I happened to be the only one who didn’t have to work today, so lucky me, after dropping off my own two hooligans at school, I was over at Edward’s house to baby-sit Lataine and Nessa bright and early.
When I first arrived, both girls were still sleeping. So not wanting to disturb them, I went to the living room and turned on the TV with the volume turned down. There wasn’t much on besides talk shows during the week, but I eventually settled on some reruns of Friends. I watched TV for about an hour before both girls made their appearance. After a breakfast of Cinnamon pop-tarts (a special breakfast for a day off), I took both girls back to their room to get dressed. Boy, was that a chore. Lataine was fairly easy, as Alice and Jasper had picked out her clothes the night before to pack. Nessa on the other hand, had a whole closet to choose from, so different from her mother who kept as few and as simple outfits as possible.
Once both girls were changed, they went off to Nessa’s playroom, as per the schedule my wife had made for them to follow at home, so I left them to their free play on their own. I could see them from the couch, and I could hear the chatter as they played so I wasn’t too worried. Eventually though, it got quiet. So, I decided to go check on them.
I walked back to the playroom to see what they were up to. Nessa was searching around the room for a bunch of different toys and putting them in a black bag when she found them. Lataine was sitting on a foldout couch that had been put in the room to play on. “Hi Uncle Emmett!” she said perkily when she noticed me standing in the doorway. I walked into the room and took a seat next to her on the couch.
“What are you girls doing in here? It got quiet,” I said. “Not that I don’t trust you but…” my voice trailed off.
“We’re gonna play our favorite game!” Nessa said to me as she threw a little plastic yellow and blue hammer into her bag. I was kinda scared to know what kind of games the two of them played with hammers. “You should play with us.”
“What is your favorite game?” I wasn’t going to say I would play until I knew what I was getting myself into. I had already gone through this age with my own twins, and I knew better. I could only hope that their favorite game wasn’t something dangerous. Jace and Iris had considered 5 Little Monkeys to be their favorite game when they had been this age, far from a game that had been considered safe.
“We’re playing doctor’s office. I’m gonna be the doctor. You can be the patient and Lataine will be the helper doctor,” Ness answered.
I chuckled. “Alright then Dr. Nessa. Tell me what I need to do.”
“Well, first can you tell me what is wrong?” she asked.
I sat and thought for a minute. “Well, my head hurts and I’m coughing a lot.” I faked a cough for emphasis.
“Ok then, can you lay down for me?” she asked as she dug around in her bag. Lataine jumped off the couch making room for me.
“Ok I want to listen to your heart first,” she said, pulling a stethoscope out of her bag. I was surprised that instead of a plastic one she pulled out a real one. Then I noticed that this was one of Edward’s old stethoscopes.
She put the rubber ear pieces into her ears, and she put the metal disk up to my stomach.
“You sound good,” she said dropping the stethoscope back into the bag. She pulled out a plastic flashlight the same colors as the hammer had been. She pretended to look into my eyes and ears with the plastic flashlight. “Say ahh,” she commanded me.
I opened my mouth and did what she had told me to. I figured Edward must have shown her how to use all of the tools because she was using them all right for the most part. Maybe the girls had made all of us play doctor at some point in time and either Jasper or Edward had taught them to use them properly. Who knows? She threw the light back into the bag and handed it to Lataine. She whispered into her ear and then turned back to me while Lataine dug through the bag.
“I’m sorry Uncle Emmett but you’re going to need a shot to get better,” she said.
“Oh no, Dr. Nessa please don’t.”
Lataine handed her a plastic syringe that looked very realistic unlike some of the toys she had in the bag.
“Please, Dr. Lataine don’t let her give me a shot,” I fake begged.
“Rather now than in the hop-sital later,” she said. Oh, the irony. I had lost count of how many times I had told her that exact thing when treating her with a real illness. “But I can hold your hand,” she offered sitting next to me on the couch.
“Okay. I guess if I have to…”
Lataine grabbed my hand. Nessa climbed on the couch and stood on her knees so that she could reach the top of my arm. She didn’t roll my sleeve up but just held the pretend syringe up to my arm. It made a clicking sound when she pushed down the top of the syringe. “All done, Uncle Emmett,” she said dropping it back in her bag and then jumping into a sitting position.
She pulled out a few of the toys. “When am I supposed to use these?” she asked.
“That’s the blood pressure cuff and that’s the thermometer. You use those first. Usually, the nurse does that. That’s called checking your vitals,” I answered.
“Is the nurse the helper doctor?” she asked.
I wasn’t quite sure who she considered the ‘helper doctor’; I only knew that’s what Lataine was supposed to be. I took a guess that she was talking about the nurse though. “Yes, the helper doctor is called a nurse.”
“Oopsie. Ok then. We should play again!” she said enthusiastically.
“Yeah!” Lataine cheered.
“Do you wanna be the doctor this time?” Nessa asked Lataine.
“No. You can be doctor again.” I did think it odd that Lataine never wanted to be doctor. I knew she sometimes played it with Jasper in his office, but even then, she usually didn’t act as the doctor. I would have thought that getting the opportunity to play as the doctor would help ease her fears. But somehow, it seemed to the be the opposite for her.
“Ok then, I’ll be doctor, Lataine, you can be the patient, and Uncle Emmett you can be the nurse.”
I stood up off the couch and got on the floor on my knees.
“Uncle Emmett can you do her vitals?” She was proud of her ability to use two new words.
“Of course, Dr. Nessa,” I said. I pulled out the thermometer from the bag. The shape of it was more than familiar, but in my office, it was typically used in one of two ways: up the butt or under the tongue. Neither of which were appropriate for a toy, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Or more like, I wasn’t sure what Nessa was expecting me to do. And I happened to know that at least Edward still monitored his child’s temperature as he would an infant.
She leaned up to me to whisper in my ear. “Put it under her arm. That’s what daddy would do.” Saved by the toddler.
“Ok miss Lataine, I’m going to take your temperature,” I said gently lifting up her arm and placing the plastic thermometer under it. She seemed to be expecting it.
Nessa hit a button on it while it was under her arm. “Ok Uncle Emmett it should be done,” she said, hopping from foot to foot in excitement.
I took the thermometer back and looked at it. I assumed she had been changing the temperature reading when she hit the button because what had read 98.6 , now read 102.4 . “Uh oh. It looks like you have a fever miss Lataine,” I said placing the thermometer back in the bag. I found the blood pressure cuff and the stethoscope and pulled it out of the bag.
The sphygmomanometer was nothing more than a strip of vinyl fabric with a tube and a spinning needle inside. I wrapped the cuff around Lataine’s arm and then put the stethoscope on myself. I put the silver disk of the stethoscope under the blood pressure cuff and puffed air through the tube attached to it. Even if the sphygmomanometer was fake and the needle spun a full 360 degrees when air was pushed through, I still felt the need to model accurate use of the tools. When I was done pretending to take her blood pressure, I put the cuff back in the bag and I gently placed the stethoscope around Nessa’s neck. “Alright Dr. Nessa. There you go.”
“So, Lataine, can you tell me why you are here today?” she asked her patient.
“My tummy hurts,” she said, clutching her stomach.
“Did you throw up?” I was impressed. It seemed like Nessa had picked up quite a bit from her dad. It seemed like it could have been real enough to me. Except for the fact that the conversation was being held in high squeaky voices, with some of the words mispronounced.
“No, not yet. But I don’t want to. It’s yucky.”
Nessa pulled the toy otoscope out of her bag. “Say ahh,” she commanded.
“Ahhhhh,” Lataine said, sticking her tongue out.
Nessa looked into her ears and her eyes with the otoscope, then threw it back into her bag. She put her stethoscope on. “I’m going to listen to your heart now,” she said. “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.” Funny how she’d said this to Lataine but not me. She put the stethoscope on her chest, very far away from where Lataine’s heart actually was. Ok, I thought. Sure, she knows how to use them but that doesn’t mean she knows how to identify the location of vital organs. I gently lifted her hand up, which was still holding the end of the stethoscope and placed it over Lataine’s heart. Her eyes lit up. “Woah I hear it!” she exclaimed.
I laughed. “Yep. You’re supposed to. Does her heart sound healthy, Dr. Nessa?” I asked.
I had apparently just opened an entire new world for her. She stood there just listening for another moment, agitating her cousin. Finally, she let the disk fall. “Yep,” she said, popping the p.
“Are you going to listen to her lungs now?” I asked.
“How do you do that?” she asked, looking up at me.
I moved her hand around to Lataine’s back. “Deep breaths,” Nessa commanded, catching on. Playing along, Lataine did as she was told. Nessa moved the stethoscope around her back for about a minute in silence. “I don’t hear anything…” she deadpanned.
Something about the way she said it was hilarious and I burst out laughing. “I guess we’ll just have to say practice makes perfect.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Ok then.” She thought for a minute and then whispered not-so-quietly in my ear again. “How do I know if her tummy is ok?” she asked.
“Have her lie down first,” I said.
“Lataine, can you lie down for me? I’m going to have my nurse check your tummy,” she explained as Lataine lied down on the couch.
“I thought you were gonna do it, Dr. Nessa?” I asked. No way did I want to be the doctor while playing. Lataine had more than enough experience being my real patient.
“Well…” she thought for a minute. “I’ll just help you do it.”
“Ok then. Alright, Miss Lataine, this will probably tickle a little bit,” I said. I pushed down on her stomach and she giggled. I did it a couple more times before purposefully tickling her. “Would you like to check?” I asked Nessa.
She pushed down lightly on Lataine’s stomach. “Okie dokie. Anything else you need to do?” she asked.
“Can I see your stethoscope, please?” She handed it to me. I put it back on and listened to Lataine’s stomach with it. Then I handed it to Nessa. “Now you listen.”
“Woah, I didn’t know you could listen to tummies with this thing!” she said, as she moved the stethoscope around Lataine’s stomach. She giggled. “It sounds all gurgly and stuff.”
That apparently caught Lataine’s attention. “I want to hear!” she squealed, sitting up abruptly. Nessa handed me the stethoscope back and I adjusted it in Lataine’s ears. Then I moved the disk to rest against her bare stomach. She listened for a second before her eyes sparkled and she giggled. Seeing her at ease, I thought I’d try something else. Now I moved the chest piece so it rested over my heart. She made eye contact with me, her little face screwed up in concentration. “I can hear your heartbeat.” I hummed my agreement. Give her some of the power, Jasper had told me before. It’ll ease her fears.
Unfortunately, Nessa decided when our exchange was done. “Hel-lo?” she sang, poking me with a finger. “Are you done yet?”
Getting the hint, Lataine took off the stethoscope and handed it back to her cousin. “Okie dokie. All done. I’m going to have to give you ten shots.” Well that was extreme. If this were real, I would have felt bad for the poor girl. She could barely sit through one. “Let me find my other shot,” she said, before disappearing out the playroom door. Lataine crawled off the couch and followed her but was turned away by a bossy, “No you’re the patient so you have to stay in there.” Lataine came back to the couch pouting, followed shortly after by Nessa, carrying a second ‘shot’ that looked identical to the one currently in the bag.
“We’re gonna do them two at a time, kinda like you and daddy do when you give me my shots,” she told me. When I had to give more than one shot, I would always have my nurse give one and I would give one and they would be given at the same time to get it done faster. Whenever Nessa would get shots, I would have her dad give her the second one instead of the nurse. Unlike Edward, Jasper refused to give Lataine any injections, so I doubled up with the nurse for her as well.
She handed me the second ‘shot.’ “We’re gonna do the ones in her arms first. When I say 3.” She counted and we both gave Lataine her pretend shot.
“Ok now legs. You can get shots in your legs right? Yeah ‘cause that’s where I get mine when I won’t sit still,” she said, answering her own question. I laughed. “On 3.” This time I gave Lataine her pretend shot in her leg.
“Ok. The rest of the shots are going in her tummy,” she said helping Lataine to lay back down on the couch. “But I’m going to give them to her Uncle Emmett. I think you should hold her hand. She’s getting squirmy.”
I sat down on the couch and rested Lataine’s head on my lap. “Can you actually get shots in your tummy?” she asked, while Nessa finished up with the last 6 pretend shots.
“You could. But they’re a different kind of shot than what you normally get. And not like this.”
“I’m so glad this isn’t real,” she whispered, looking up at me.
“Trust me. For your sake, I am very glad it isn’t real. These don’t hurt. Real shots would have.”
“Ok, all done,” she said.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Lataine, who was still lying in my lap giggled as it vibrated against her neck. “I need to go answer my phone, girls. I’ll be right back,” I said, stepping over toys as I headed back out to the living room.
“Hello?”
“Hey Emmett. It’s Jasper. I had a couple of minutes in between patients, and I just wanted to see how you guys were doing? Unless I get held up later, I should be by to pick up both girls in a couple hours; give you a break.”
“We played Doctor’s office all morning,” I said. “Everything is fine. Baby-sitting is certainly interesting.”
He laughed. I probably wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know as he had babysat much more than I had. “Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve been there, done that. And I couldn’t agree more. I’d recommend getting them outside for about half an hour before lunch, it’ll get some of their bottled-up energy out. After lunch, Lataine will definitely need a nap, and she usually sleeps about two hours. Nessa is hit or miss on nap time, so she can watch thirty minutes of television and then play quietly. And hopefully by then, one of us will be there to relieve you of nanny duties.”
“Isn’t there a way to just transplant the bottled-up energy to me?” I asked.
“Um no, but I’ll get right on that,” Jasper laughed. “Good luck and have fun.”
I disconnected the phone and went back into the playroom, plopping down on the couch. “Alright girlies, what’s next on the schedule?”
“Outside time!” Nessa shouted!
“Sounds good. Let’s get some shoes on, then.” Both girls scrambled to the back door, where two pairs of play shoes were sitting on a mat. Thankfully, they both put on their own shoes with little fuss, though Lataine did need me to tie them for her.
When shoes were on, I opened up the sliding glass door leading to the play set and they both ran out, Lataine immediately headed for the swing and Nessa for the slide. I sat down on the porch swing with a medical journal I had brought with me from home. They giggled and played for a bit, and I kept an eye on them both, but with both of them playing in their respective areas of the play set, I wasn’t too concerned. But then they got quieter. You ever heard the phrase “silence is golden?” Well with little kids, silence was never golden. It usually meant trouble. Sure enough, I looked up right as Nessa sprinkled a tiny fistful of sand onto Lataine’s head.
I jumped up fast enough to knock my chair over, practically running to where they were playing in the sandbox. “Do I even want to know what you’re doing? Nessa, you cannot put sand in your cousin’s hair.”
“It’s not sand, Uncle Emmett,” Lataine said. “It’s pixie dust!”
I sighed. Checking my watch, I realized it had almost been half an hour, so it was probably a good time to head inside.
I sent a quick text to Bella. “I have a child with sand in her hair. Bath?”
“Please tell me it’s not my hooligan,” she replied.
I laughed at her colloquial. “No, not yours.”
“Then yes, go ahead and wash her hair. There’s a plastic cup on the side of the tub to rinse with, L’Oreal shampoo sitting in it. Use tangle spray to comb through it after.”
A minute later, my phone buzzed again. “Be lucky it isn’t both of them. They’ve both had ‘pixie dust’ in their hair every day for the past 2 weeks.” Oh God. I loved my nieces to pieces, but I was certainly glad my children were past the toddler years. They were some of the hardest.
I ushered the two back into the house and scooped up the sandy one as soon as she had her shoes off. “Alright Lataine, we need to wash the sand, excuse me, pixie dust, out of your hair. Nessa, I’m going to turn on Blue’s Clues, but you have to stay sitting on the couch until Lataine and I come back, okay?” Nothing could go wrong here.
I turned on the television and popped in the VHS tape before carrying a squirming Lataine to the bathroom. “No bath!”
I sighed. “Tainey-Bug, I have to get the sand out of your hair. If we don’t get it out, it’s gonna make your hair itchy.”
“But I don’t like getting water in my eyes!”
I helped her take her clothes off and I placed her in the tub, now filling up with water. This at least seemed to help her mood. “I’m nakey!” she giggled.
“Yes, you are. Nakey for bath time.” I gently coaxed her chin up to look at me. “I promise I will not get any soap or water in your eyes. But if you don’t like having your hair washed every day, you have to stop putting pixie dust in it silly. You can play with pixie dust without putting it in your hair.”
I got a washcloth out of the cabinet before shutting off the water and placing her in the tub. She started pulling toys out of the net on the wall as I took the washcloth and folded it into a small rectangle. “Hold this over your eyes so you won’t get water in them,” I said, handing her the cloth. She put it up against her eyes, pressing both palms into it to keep it tight against her face as I slowly poured a cup of lukewarm water so that it went down the back of her head, wetting all of her hair without touching her face. I took the cloth from her and placed it on the side of the tub before squirting a bit of shampoo into my palm. Lataine kept her eyes tightly shut while I massaged her sandy scalp, though humorously, she continued to play with the bathtub baby doll, chatting to herself as she washed baby’s hair. After rinsing my hands, I handed her the washcloth back so I could rinse the suds out of her hair without getting soap in her eyes. It took about 4 cups of water to get her hair thoroughly rinsed and by the time I had finished, she was squirming, and the washcloth was damp with water. “Alright love, we’re all clean!”
While keeping a hand on her back, I pulled the panda towel from the towel rack and helped her to carefully stand up before unstopping the drain. The panda towel had a hood that went over her head, and it wrapped perfectly around her little body. I picked her up bride style, grabbed the tangle spray, a comb and her clothes and headed back out to the living room where Nessa was thankfully still entranced in Blue’s Clues. I owed Steve a debt for temporarily baby-sitting my niece.
My clothes were now wet from carrying a naked wet baby through the house and it almost made me miss my scrubs. But nonetheless, after I helped her put her clothes back on, which had thankfully stayed clean, I sat her down in front of me to comb her hair. “Ow! Uncle Emmett, stop pulling! It hurts!”
Oh right. Lataine was miss sensitive head. I took a deep breath and started again, slower this time, working the comb through her wet hair that now fell in small ringlets down her back. I was so thankful when I had finally finished. Brushing the poor child’s hair basically took surgical precision to avoid tears.
I sat back on the couch, Lataine now cuddled in my lap. “Alright little ladies, what are we doin’ for lunch?” I asked. Lataine yawned. Yup, nap time was coming soon.
“Noodles!” Nessa exclaimed.
“Nes, you’re gonna turn into a noodle.”
“Nope! My daddy says that can’t happen!”
“Oh ya? Well, I say, you are what you eat. And with as much as you eat noodles, you’re going to turn into one. But I can cook noodles if Lataine is okay with it.”
She hesitated. Lataine was always indecisive, and I had just put her on the spot. “I guess that’s okay.”
“You sure, munchkin?” She nodded.
“Alright then,” I said, standing up with Lataine still in my arms, now in a cradle carry. She squealed. “Time for Chef Emmett to go make lunch,” I said placing her gently back on the couch before heading out to the kitchen, leaving the girls in front of the television. Pediatrician in me cringed for letting Nessa sit in front of a screen for so long, but damn, childcare is difficult. Their preschool teachers definitely don’t get paid enough.
Noodles didn’t take too long to cook, only about 5 minutes. And since Nessa ate more Maruchan than the average college kid, I had gotten pretty good at cooking them just right. So, while the noodles boiled, I made myself a turkey sandwich. When the noodles were ready, I mixed in a cup of freshly steamed veggie medley, to at least make the meal healthy somehow, and divided the concoction up into two bowls and called the kiddos out to the table.
Lunch was, thankfully, a rather uneventful affair but I could tell Lataine was getting tired. As she ate, she continually yawned and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. But I wasn’t sure who needed nap time more; me or the toddlers.
As I cleaned up the kitchen from lunch, the two girls happily entertained themselves with some crayon drawings. “Alright, it’s nap time, Miss Lataine.”
She abandoned her coloring and came over to me, putting her arms in the air to be picked up.
“I want to take a nap too!” Nessa exclaimed, haphazardly putting crayons back in the box.
I eyed her suspiciously. “Bella says you’ve stopped taking naps.”
“But I want to share the bed with Lataine. Please, Uncle Emmett!”
“Only if you let your cousin sleep. If I think you’re keeping her awake, you’ll come right back out here. Got it, little lady?”
“Got it!”
I put Lataine back down, encouraging her to go help her cousin clean up the crayons, though there wasn’t much more to do now. She at least put away the few that she had been coloring with. “Book first!” she exclaimed, with a slight burst of energy as she ran off to Nessa’s room, with her cousin following closely behind her. She pulled a book off the shelf as I entered the room.
“Here Uncle Emmett. Let’s read this one!”
“Let’s get you into bed first then.” She scrambled into the toddler bed and Nessa crawled up next to her. There was no way they could both fit on such a small bed. “Ness, how about after the story, I’ll pull out the camp cot?” I asked, sitting down on the floor and leaning against the wall.
She considered this for a moment. “Okay!” Thankfully. I nodded my head before starting to ‘read’.
“The Very Hungry Toddler, by Eric Carle.” Both girls giggled. I feigned surprise. “What? What’s so funny?”
“It’s the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Uncle Em,” Nessa corrected.
“Oh! Got it! Let me try again.” I pointed to each word on the title page as I read them aloud. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle.” It was a fairly short book, only slowed down slightly as the girls insisted on “reading” with me. But as soon as I finished, Lataine was already cuddling into the bed. I turned off the lights and tucked her in before pulling the camp cot out of the closet.
“Nessa, you better let your cousin sleep,” I reminded as I tucked her on the cot as well. “If you bother her, you’ll come back to the living room with me. Capiche?”
She nodded and squinted her eyes shut. I rolled my eyes at her antics as I flipped on the night light. I kissed both girls on the head before vacating the room. The monitor had been left on the kitchen counter, so I kept it with me, watching it for a few moments to ensure they had settled down. Lataine was easily already asleep. Nessa was on her stomach, kicking her feet up and down but she was quiet, so that was the important part.
And all seemed well for about twenty minutes. I was able to read for a little bit, uninterrupted until I heard noise from the monitor. I looked down to see Nessa laying on her back, with her feet in the air, blankets and pillows deposited on the floor. I could just barely make out what she was singing, one of the numerous Blue’s Clues songs. I cringed. Whispering wasn’t exactly a skill she had developed yet. And I was about to intervene when I heard the garage door.
Bella had just arrived home. And apparently, Nessa had heard her too, because a moment later, she emerged from the room, whisper yelling “Mommy!” I chuckled. So much for wanting a nap.
I checked on Lataine who was, thankfully, still sleeping before pulling the door closed once more and going to greet my sister.
“…and then we went to the sandbox and played with pixie dust except Uncle Emmett said we can’t put it in our hair, so Lataine had to take a bath and then we ate noodles and now Lataine is sleeping.”
“It sounds like you had a very busy day. Were you good for your uncle?”
“Yes!” she almost sounded offended.
“Thanks for watching them, Emmett. Especially since you had to bathe one. Were they both well behaved?” she asked as she stood back up.
“Aside from the pixie dust,” I laughed. “But it’s no problem little sis. I really do love getting to spend time with my nieces. But if you’re okay with them for the rest of the day, I’m going home for a nap.”