Baby Elaina

Isabella has Early Childhood Development this semester. It has been a good class, but hard in some respects as it has brought up the trauma of her early childhood. But she's done really well. The final "project" is to bring home a baby which you care for overnight. Isabella has been nervous about having the baby, but I assured her she would be an excellent mother.

Today, the baby came home. Isabella sent me a picture of our newest family member which I proudly showed around the bank. "I'm a grandma!" I announced. I asked if the child was a boy or a girl, what she was going to name him or her, and how long she got to keep the baby. It was a girl, she named it Elaina, and it only stayed the one night. 

The baby comes with a set of "keys" you insert into a slot in the back of the baby. The keys were needs attention, feed, burp, diaper change. Periodically, the baby would cry and Isabella would have to figure out what she needed. If it was feeding, shortly after the feeding the baby would coo and then she would need to burp, then a few minutes later, the baby would coo again and she would have to burp a second time. 

Isabella was a good mom. She set up a highchair next to her computer so Elaina could be close, but most of the time, she just held her. She sang the complete Hamilton score to Elaina, made sure to attend to her as soon as she cried, and cared for her during the night. She mocked me for talking to Elaina, telling her what I was doing when I was holding her, and wanting to read her a story, but I reminded Isabella that all those things help a child's development. Isabella kept saying, "It's an inanimate object!" and I kept saying, "It's a baby!" 

Isabella's one big concern was that something would happen to Elaina and she would have to use the "panic" key. She did such a good job, there was no need. At least, there was almost no need. Just before leaving for school, Isabella handed Elaina to Kent to hold while she brushed her teeth. Kent propped Elaine up on his chest, with her face towards him. That put her sort of on her tummy. Isabella said she was not ever to put the baby on her stomach, especially as if she was sleeping, because you aren't supposed to put babies on their tummies. Elaina began to cry and cry and cry and nothing calmed her down until Isabella used the panic key. She was so irritated with Kent and certain she was going to fail, even though she had done such a good job for the bulk of the time. It was a posture Kent and I both used with the children, so it seemed completely normal, but Elaina didn't like it. In the end, it was fine. She was docked no points and got an A on the project.

Key insertion

Elaina needed some attention

Here is Isabella's report of how the night went:

The night was pretty terrible. I 'slept' with a small light on so that I wasn't struggling in the dark when I was woken up. Because of the way the baby is programmed, after the initial cry, I had to stay up anywhere from 5ish to 30 more minutes to reinsert the key to end the crying cycle, so it didn't restart. The baby cried maybe 4 times during the night, but I was so anxious and paranoid that I stayed up, ready at a moment's notice. Would I do it again? No. Am I glad for the experience? Yeah, and I'd recommend it. But ah- it was not very fun, and I didn't like being repeatedly woken up.