My Grandbaby

Friday K2 brought home a "baby" for her Child Development class. The baby is programmed to cry at intervals and simulate how life changing having a baby is. To make it stop crying, a key has to be inserted in its back, turned and held there for 20-30 minutes. The baby has to be taken care of 24 hours a day and will cry if handled wrong.

The baby went everywhere with K2 all weekend. She had to immediately tend to it when it cried. Needless to say, she's exhausted.

So, the baby's name was "Dorothy". Only Dorothy was not a girl. Dorothy had boy parts. All weekend B and I called it our "Gender Confused Grandchild".

Yesterday evening, Dorothy died. She stopped crying. K2 is sure she's going to fail the project. She's sure she did something wrong and caused Dorothy's demise. We're very certain the batteries just died. She did a wonderful job taking care of the "baby" so I'm certain that whatever happened had nothing to do with how she handled the plastic wonder. But, the poor kid is stressed - exhausted and worried.

And next semester, K1 will have this very same project. I'm glad for plastic crying babies though. That's the only kind of grandchildren I want for a long time. Even though we're a large family, I don't think the older kids realized just how much care babies require. They've never had to get up and walk the floors with their brother and sister. Sure, they've been ripped from sleep by crying infants, but they've always had the luxury of going back to sleep and letting Mom or Dad handle the situation.

They've never had to find childcare or rearrange their schedule to accomodate a baby. K2 had a lot going on this weekend and had to factor the baby's needs into her plans. And she did a great job. She also, as much as she loves babies, says she's not having children for a very long time.

This is a good project.