Joshua's First Picnic

This last weekend my in laws came to visit us. When they come here, or we go to their house Brian and I try to take advantage of the free babysitting and get out on a well needed date. We have gone out two times before and Joshua has been happy and went to bed easily.


When Bob and Terry got to our apartment they walked in and said "Hello Joshua". Joshua looked at them and burst into tears and started clinging to me. After a minute Brian took him and Joshua settled down. Then Joshua looked at his grandparents again and started bawling. He eventually settled down as long as Brian or I were holding him. We then went on a walk, and that made Joshua happy and he would even coo at his grandparents. Then it was nap time for Joshua and Terry and Bob went to the beach. When they got back we all played with Joshua for a few minutes and he seemed okay with his grandparents so Brian and I left on our date.

I guess Joshua was happy for about 15 minutes until he realized that his parents were gone, then he started crying. It was almost his dinner time, so the grandparents put him in the high chair and tried to feed him. He just kept crying and wouldn't eat. They decided to take him on a walk and try to feed him afterwords. Joshua became happy as soon as they got outside, and enjoyed his walk thoroughly. When they got back to the apartment, Joshua started crying again and refused to eat. Bob and Terry decided to take advantage of Joshua's love of the outdoors. They put him in his stroller, took him outside and fed him out there. I bet people who saw them wondered what the heck was going on. Brian thought they would have looked homeless, except our stroller is too nice. So that was Joshua's first picnic.

The rest of the night was fairly tearful. I usually nurse him after his dinner, so we left a bottle. The grandparents came in to get the bottle and he wouldn't take it. It was getting too cold to stay outside, and it was late enough that it was his bathtime. They decided to skip that bottle, hoping the bath would settle him down enough to take a bottle before he went to sleep. Joshua did start to settle down as he watched them prepare his bath. He was even happy for about two minutes in the tub, then remembered why he was unhappy before. He started crying again, and again refused his bottle. He ended up just crying himself to sleep while Terry rocked him.

I figured he would get up that night to nurse since he hadn't taken a bottle or nursed since 3:30 that afternoon. Amazingly he made it until 6:00 that morning. He was pretty hungry though and was happy to see Brian and me. Joshua even warmed up to his grandparents the next morning and would let them hold him, but he kept a watchful eye on both Brian and me to make sure we didn't leave again.