La Familia: It takes a town

For the past week-and-a-half, we've called on our family to come help us out by providing daycare while our normal babysitter is off on vacation. My mom, Grandma, and C's dad, Jagee (The phonetic spelling of a version of the Polish word for grandpa, Dziadek) split up the work between them and have come from the corners of the state on different days, agreeing to stay on a futon in our pathetic excuse for a guest bedroom just to help us out and get to know their granddaughter.

It was not unlike a miracle, this act I witnessed, that demonstrated the strength of love between a grandparent and his granddaughter: Ellie was barely drifting off to sleep in her bouncer in the living room while Jagee was FB-ing on the computer when he was overtaken by a series of his sneezes.  "Sneeze" doesn't come close to describing what it is that he does. Technically, yes; but the force that releases from my father-in-law, is unworldly.  C was sitting next to Ellie and it never failed that for 5 times in a row, as soon as Ellie closed her eyes, Jagee sneezed.  And for as long as I've known him, those sneezes are punctuated by the gasps of surprise from anyone in the vicinity; that is to say, not an "excuse me." It's not offensive and I, just like everyone else who knows and loves him, accept it and forget it. But on Monday, when apparently Jagee was sneezing all day long while babysitting Ellie, he made a valiant effort to muffle those sneezes and bring them down to a volume normal for mortal humans. This simple act really underscored how much he loves his grandchildren.

Anyway, their help, and the help from all the rest of our family has been amazing.