Who is That Masked Baby?!

Yesterday was a particularly busy day for us. It started out with me going to the gym (yea!) and daddy and Millie staying home for tubby time, then we took a family outing to the grocery store for the week's shopping. After the grocery store it was back home so everyone could eat some lunch and then we got ready to head out again so mommy and daddy could get haircuts. Millie fell asleep in the car on the way home from grocery shopping, so we left her in her car seat and brought her into the house to sleep. So, when we were ready to go out again, we put her in her seat in the house. Scott and I left the room for a minute to get ourselves ready and when we came back into the living room, this is what we found:

Scott swears she was laughing under there :). She kinda looks like Mush Mouth from Fat Albert, don't ya think? Scott says Spiderman. Either way, she is one goofy baby....

Ater the haircuts we got back home and everyone had another snack and mommy and daddy got ready to go out for the night. That's right -- we embarked on our second date since Millie has been in our lives. If you recall, our first date was in February when we were in St. Louis and we went to dinner leaving Millie with Lainey, Grandpa Ric and Auntie LoLo. It was a relatively successful night as Millie only cried for the last 1/2 hour or so causing Auntie LoLo and Lainey to pull out every trick they knew to get her to stop. Last night was not so successful. One of my co-workers, Toni, came over to babysit. She had been offering for months and I finally took her up on it. She is a lovely person -- is working on her teaching degree and is great with the kids at school, so I had no reservations about her. Millie on the other hand wasn't quite so sure.

Toni came over early (about 3:45) so that we could all hang out together and Millie could get used to her with us here (we didn't have to leave until about 4:30). Things went well at first -- Millie and I showed Toni around the house and answered her questions about Millie's routine, we all got down on the floor to play and Millie showed what a happy baby she is -- it was all smiles and kicking feet. Then Toni picked her up. That didn't go over well, even though I was sitting only about a foot away. Somehow Millie knew what was going on. She turned to look at me, her little bottom lip came out, her blue eyes teared up and she seemed to be silently saying, "Why are you doing this to me, don't you love me?!" Talk about breaking a mother's heart. I of course swooped her up and comforted her and put her back down to play. She got happy again. Until Toni tried again to pick her up. Out came the tears and sobs. I felt terrible. About that point I decided it was probably best if we just left (having babysat for plenty of kids in my time and knowing that the crying usually stops soon after mom leaves and the smiles return).

Scott and I left (not without reservations of course, but knowing she was in good hands). We enjoyed a brief stroll through downtown Fairfield and then went to see "Juno." After the movie we headed to dinner. All in all it was a very nice grown-up date :). We got home around 8:30 -- a pretty early night. When we walked in, Millie had just fallen asleep on the floor, though Toni told us she was going to call us if she hadn't fallen asleep. Millie must have smelled us, because almost instantly she woke up and started crying. I moved pretty fast to pick her up -- ah, smiles at last. So, Millie didn't cry the WHOLE night. She and Toni were able to play on the floor and be happy together. BUT, every time Toni picked her up, the tears started again. Poor Toni. She loves babies and just wanted to be able to snuggle and comfort Millie. Millie was having nothing of it. Toni picked her up to change her diaper she cried. (though she was happy on the changing table and Toni commented that she loves to be naked :)). She picked her up to put her jammies on, she cried. She picked her up to try to feed her, she cried. We even tried again a couple of times after we got home and she was happy again. But nope, the minute she was in Toni's arms, she cried. She was happy to look at Toni from mommy's arms and to play with her fingers, etc. Just as long as she wasn't holding her. Well, we tried. And we'll try again sometime.

Millie is definitely hitting that age when she's starting to get shy around strangers. Which is fine, a little caution is a good thing. She's fine with Stephanie, her daycare provider, since she's been with her for so long now, so that is good. We'll try to set up some play dates with Toni so that Millie can get used to her with us around. I'm sure it won't take long for her to figure out how fun Toni is ;). And until then, well, it looks like daddy is lucky enough to have two dates to take out with him :).