A wailing party

So yesterday I agreed to watch my friend Jessica's daughter Revie for a few minutes until her husband Jeff came home. I brought both Revie and Vanessa down to the basement for playtime. They both had some time in the Jumperoo (Revie is an excellent jumper, by the way). Then I set them both down on the playmat and they were playing happily together (or at least, next to each other).

"Oh wait," I thought, "When Jeff comes by to pick up Revie, I won't be able to hear the doorbell in the basement. I'll be really clever and set up the baby monitor to pick up the doorbell chime. I'll rush upstairs really fast and get the baby monitor from the nursery." I ran to get the monitor, set it up, and was downstairs again in 2 minutes or less. The babies were still playing happily, although Vanessa had taken away Revie's rattle. Vanessa, be nice and share!

All was going well until Vanessa peed. I changed her diaper. Then I decided to check Revie's diaper. It was wet too. As I was changing Revie's diaper, though, Vanessa started fussing just a little. I normally would have picked her up to comfort her but I was in the middle of changing Revie's diaper. By the time I finished changing Revie's diaper, Vanessa was fussing a little more. In fact, fussing too much for Revie! "Waah!" Revie started howling! Then Vanessa thought, "What a great idea, I think I'll howl too!" I picked up the wailing Vanessa. It turned out she had a burp that had been bothering her. But there was no calming her now.

I felt like I was babysitting a pair of wolf cubs. They just couldn't help howling when the other one started. I should have been worried about them, I guess, but I couldn't help laughing at my situation. Ah! What does one do with two screaming babies? When I calm one down, the other is still wailing and then the first starts right back up again! I had picked up both of them and was walking to other rooms hoping to distract them into calming down. It wasn't working, of course.

Thank goodness after only about 5 minutes of this, my phone rang and it was Jeff to rescue me. Apparently my baby monitor system didn't work for the doorbell and the poor guy was outside in the cold trying to get inside. I wonder if he could hear his baby screaming at the top of her lungs! I realized later that we had turned the volume way down on the monitor the night before so that must have been why it didn't work.

Ah, well, adventures in babysitting. I didn't mind so much the 5 minutes of dueling wailers, but I have to say, thank goodness I don't have triplets.