Babysitting

About a week ago, my boss Cory and his wife Christine asked me to watch their 14 month old daughter (Sage) for an hour and a half. They told me that it would be during her nap time, so I could just hang out. I agreed to babysit.

When I arrived at their house, Christine had just put Sage down for her nap. Christine told me that this would be a breeze. I literally wouldn't have to do anything unless Sage woke up before they got home, at which point I should just give her a bottle and play with her in the living room. "You won't even have to change a diaper." Christine told me.

Before she left, Christine told me that the day before, Sage had gotten her leg stuck in the bars of her crib after taking her diaper off and peeing in her bed. Christine didn't know who else to call as everyone she knew was unavailable, so she called the fire department. 4 fire men showed up to free a naked 14 month old from the cage that was her crib. The point of her telling me this story was to explain how I would get Sage out if she got stuck again, but somehow I knew this babysitting job wouldn't be quite as easy as everyone thought.

After Christine left, I wrote some e-mails and worked on a few things before sitting down to watch some TV. Not long later, I heard noises from upstairs. Sage wasn't crying, but she was definitely awake. I wasn't sure if she hadn't gone to sleep yet, or had woken up early, but Christine had told me that when Sage was up, she would start crying. I decided to wait.

The noise stopped, so I had good reason to believe that Sage had gone back to sleep. 5 minutes later, she was making noise again. Not crying, just noise. I stood at the bottom of the stairs listening, and hoping she would go back to sleep. The process repeated. She would be quiet for a few minutes, then stir for a little, then quiet. After about 20 minutes of this, she started crying. I admitted defeat and started heading upstairs. It seemed like Sage was up for good, and only 45 minutes after Christine had left.

I walked up the stairs and opened the door. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. Sage was standing in her crib, holding her diaper in her hand, and there was poop...everywhere. I'm serious. It was all over the crib, all over her hands, and even on her face...It was on her shirt, on the floor, in her hair, you get the idea. She was like a little monkey flinging her feces festively. It was disgusting. In an entirely calm but disbelieving voice I said "oh no...Sage...what have you done". She looked excited and happy to see me as she held her arms out requesting for me to pick her up. I didn't want to, but I knew I had to.

Thinking back, I'm guessing that I haven't babysat in almost 10 years. Even then I only babysat for kids who were potty trained. I have very little baby experience, and yet...I didn't panic. Looking at the situation as a whole would have been far too overwhelming. I decided to take it one step at a time. Step one: get the poop off the baby.

I didn't know how in the world I was going to clean her up, I was so unprepared for this. What I DID know was that I needed to get her and myself out of that room because it smelled awful. I picked her up, held her at arms distance, and walked downstairs with no discernible plan for step 1.

All of a sudden the bathtub caught my eye. It seemed logical, give the baby a bath right? Well yes, but I had never given a baby a bath before. Could I even do this? Was this inappropriate? It didn't matter, it was my only option.

I put her in the adult sized tub next to the little baby tub for her. I started warming up the water while I tried to get her out of the rest of her clothes. She was handing me toys in a playful manner, clearly unaffected by the situation.

Bath time seemed to be a treat for her, for me it was awkward and scary. I had to remind myself that this wasn't something I was doing out of choice, it was out of necessity. I didn't read too much into it, I simply treated it as a problem that needed to be solved.

Every little thing was new to me. I looked around for baby soap and found some. It seemed kinda watery so I wasn't sure if this is how baby soap is, or if Sage had dumped the soap out and refilled it with water. I just went with it.

Step 1: check. Step 2: dry the baby off. This may seem like a no-brainer to most of you, but I had to think about it. Sage isn't stable enough on her own two feet for me to simply stand her up and dry her off like a dog or something. Don't worry, I figured it out. I "swaddled" her in a towel, and made my way over to the changing station. Yes that's right, Step 3: diaper.

On any other day, this would have been a bit more overwhelming, but after giving Sage a bath to get her own POOP off of her, a diaper didn't seem too far fetched. I grabbed a diaper, logically decided which side was the front, and then started looking for other diaper necessities. Do I need to wipe her? Am I supposed to use baby powder? I found a box of wipes and decided "better safe than sorry". I couldn't find baby powder, which was a relief because I wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway.

Step 3: check. Step 4: clothes.

I brought Sage upstairs, back into the poop room, and started looking for clothes. I wasn't sure which articles of clothing fit her and which didn't. I attempted to find a matching outfit, but quickly gave up on that. Finally I found a pair of jeans that looked like they fit, and started to figure out how one clothes a baby.

After all of this, I hadn't even considered how I would clean up the poop mess. If it had been any other situation, I would have figured out a way to multi-task, but this was a baby. I couldn't exactly leave her in the bathtub to bathe herself while I attended to the disaster in her bedroom. She's 14 months old...I've got enough sense to know that you can't leave those things alone in a bathtub.

Luckily I didn't have to tackle the rest of the mess alone. Cory got home a little earlier than I expected, and after finding me no where downstairs, came upstairs to look for me. I was busy putting elastic waist jeans on a baby. He came in the room and asked "what's up?". I replied "we had a little accident". He exclaimed "holy crap!" I added "literally", and thus I was saved from cleaning up the mess alone.

Cory and Christine were quite proud of how I handled the situation, and looking back on it, so was I. It was trial by fire, but I made it through. It's amazing how God seems to be continually initiating me into manhood; teaching me things that I had never considered something that I'd need to know. Ya learn something new everyday.

The Half Marathon

The past two weeks I visited a few places in the south. The purpose of me being there was to run the (half) marathon, and then be in my friend Forrest's wedding. It was quite an eventful time for many reasons, but I'll focus on the half marathon for now.

I flew into Atlanta for the half marathon and to help my friend James unpack from his recent return to the ATL. I hung out for a few days with James and his roommates Drew and James, and then it was time for the half marathon. I was not looking forward to it because I hadn't run in nearly 2 months.

Race day started off pretty poorly. I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and when I woke up I had a lot of congestion. The weather was cold with the promise of rain. Not exactly ideal, but we were excited none-the-less.

Fast forward to the start of the race. James and I are wearing ridiculous running shirts and shorts, along with hot pink hats. For breast cancer...duh. The race begins, and there are literally thousands of people beginning to run. We sneak in at Corral C with the serious runners. I probably won't do that next time. We started at a pace a little faster than we were all comfortable with, but eventually just held back and let the serious runners pass.

I was very worried about my knee, but I had gotten a new brace the day before and had high hopes. I was basically expecting a miracle.

I had joked with James and my sister that if I was feeling good, I might split off and run the full marathon, but I had absolutely no reason to believe it was a possibility.

By mile 3 or 4, I was feeling great. A little bit of race day adrenaline was kicking in and my knee was feeling up to the challenge. I began seriously considering going for the full marathon...26.2 miles.

Around mile 6, my knee started hurting. It wasn't a dull and gradually increasing pain like before. It hit, and it hit hard. I had to walk for a little bit. I knew that the full marathon was completely out of the question, now I was wondering if I could even complete the half.

We began walking more than we were running about that time. James and my sister were extremely gracious about the pain I was in and didn't care about their own times. We all just wanted to do it together.

We were in no hurry at all. When we had to pee, we stopped. When we wanted a drink, we walked till we were finished with it. There were even a few times when we began looking for a coffee shop because we were all a little tired...we didn't find one though. I began getting pretty frustrated. We tried running a few times here and there, but the pain was just too much. Luckily it was mostly just in the right knee.

My parents came to Atlanta that weekend to see me and to be there for me, my sister, and James on race day. They waited at a CVS around mile 8. As the three of us were getting closer to where my parents would be, a shooting pain went through my knee that almost made me collapse. I began thinking that it might be a good idea to stop when I saw my parents, and ride back with them.

When we got to where my parents were, I wasn't feeling good about anything, but James and my sister assured me that they didn't mind walking the rest of the way if need be. Even though I felt ashamed about my condition, I decided to accept their offer, and go the rest of the way. I just wanted to finish it.

The next 5.1 miles were awful. lots of walking, a little running, and lots of pain. As we got within a quarter mile of the finish line, I suggested we pick up the pace and finish running rather than walking. After about 20 feet, the pain was so great that I felt like stopping, but I pushed through. I was angry. I was going to finish that dang race running no matter what. We finished, and I remained angry.

Over the course of this injury, I've definitely been praying about it. There are some days when I ask God "what are you trying to tell me in all of this". There are other days when my attitude is more of "well, it is what it is...". Then there are still other days when my attitude is "Dang it God! Why is this happening to me?"

I've recently been reading a book called The Prodigal God. In the book, Tim Keller talks about the "parable of the prodigal son" highlighting not the younger "prodigal" brother, but rather the elder brother in the story. You can read about these two brothers in Luke 15:11-31.

Part of Tim Keller's point is that while the younger brother recognized his sin and need for forgiveness, the elder brother did not. He had lived a morally "good" life and felt that he "deserved" certain things because of it. He put his faith in his self as a savior, and not the savior Jesus.

It's easy to look at both these brothers and point fingers at things that they've done wrong, but I've become more and more aware of these same qualities in myself. Specifically qualities of the elder brother.

Not that I would have been able to admit it before, but I've seen that when I do "good things" I hope, and even expect, to be rewarded. That is to say "God, look at all these things I've done...now why is my knee hurting? Why hasn't money come in like It "should" be? Why...are things not going perfectly?"

It's not the way God works. He works for the good of those who love Him, and sometimes that means knee pain. I don't know why, but I know this: God is committed to the continuous process of sanctifying us (making us more Christ-like)...and growth is usually very difficult. I've learned lessons in this marathon thing that I suppose I couldn't have otherwise learned, and I thank The Lord for that.

God is Prodigal (definition: recklessly spendthrift) in that he has given to us that which we don't deserve. Forgiveness.

Check out The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller