1-8 The Daycare Snafu

When we last visited our family Noel was very upset that she had a baby sister. All the talks about the new baby did not prevent the angry moodlet from an unwanted sibling. But after a heated, one-sided discussion with Mr. Bearskin she decided to give the baby a chance.

Jolene was a much fussier baby than her older sister. If she wasn’t sleeping she was crying about something. I soon found that low hygiene is an issue even when there is no soiled diaper to change. After trying to feed and socialize with her I would just change her diaper and this seemed to work until she was hungry again. 

One afternoon soon after Noel came home from school the daycare mistakenly dropped the baby off. They just drove up, put her in her bassinet and left! Noel didn’t know what to do. She knew her sister had a soiled nappy, but since Casseil was using cloth she didn’t want to risk sticking the baby with a pin.

“Shhhhh little baby, it’s okay, mom or dad will be here soon.” Jolene just cried louder.

“Hey I know I’ll tell you a joke! Where do astronauts leave their spaceships?”

Waaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

“At Parking Meteors!”

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Oh Plumbots!! If you don’t stop screaming I’m gonna, why…. I’m gonna park a spaceship on you! Waaaaa! “Ugh, this is not good, I know the neighbors can hear you, please stop crying, I don’t want them to take you away.”

Noel finally decided it was best to just call her mom and tell her that Jolene was home and she couldn’t fix a bottle or change her diaper. Casseil came straight home. She couldn’t believe that they would just drop a baby off with a second grader and think everything would be ok!

Noel headed to her bedroom to work on her drawing, she had many hours of practice if she was going to be able to draw all the cool pictures she wanted to.

“Noel, dear, I am so proud of you for trying to comfort your sister. I’m also very sorry you were stuck with her all alone. The daycare had the schedules mixed up. They thought your father would be home at 3 instead of 5. Why they didn’t make sure he was home is beyond me! It won’t happen again. I’m off tomorrow your dad is off Saturday and then Sunday is Jolene’s birthday."

“It’s okay mommy, I was just upset that I couldn’t make her laugh. I even told her my bestest joke!”

“Well, I’m still proud of you. You kept your cool and called me as soon as you realized you couldn’t do it alone.”

“Not exactly. I tried telling her a joke, but that made her even madder. Then I got mad and yelled too. I may or may not have told her I would park a spaceship on her if she didn’t stop screaming. But I’m sorry, I really don’t want to not have a sister, sometimes she’s nice, and even kind of cute, when she’s sleeping at least”

Casseil held back her chuckle, she was even more proud of her daughter. “Wow, you did better than I thought!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you tried to help, you tried to make her happy. So you got upset, it’s okay, we all get upset sometimes. The important thing is you made the right choices. Instead of just walking away and letting her cry, or worse picking her up and shaking her, you were responsible and called someone that could help you. Plus, here you are being totally honest with me about how you felt, what you said and what you did. You did great honey and I am very proud of you”

The next few days were pretty uneventful, when she could Casseil helped Noel with her drawings. 

Sunday morning Noel slept in because she had been up all night drawing pictures. Casseil was in the bedroom with Jolene when it was time for her to age up.

“Happy Birthday Jolene!” Here childhood trait is Geek, she takes after her mother on this one, and her aspiration is to be a Social Butterfly.

“Mom, do we have a spaceship?”

“A spaceship?” she chuckled “No, no spaceships here, yet. I wouldn’t worry about it though, your sister didn’t really mean she would park an actual spaceship on you.”

“Oh, good! Does that mean she won’t sit on me either, because she told me if I wasn’t any fun she would sit on me!”

“Well, probably, but you never know for sure, she is part troll after all.”

Jolene was pretty concerned that here big sister wasn’t going to like her still and Casseil could see it in her expression.

“Just remember dear, you are also ½ troll and can give as good as you get”, she told her with a wink.

Jolene thought this was really neat news and something she could possibly use in the future, she wasn’t sure what a ‘troll’ was yet, but it sounded kind of scary and cool at the same time.

She walked into the main room and up to her sister, who had just finished breakfast. She knew she had to let her sister know she wouldn't be pushed around, no matter how afraid of her she might be she couldn't ever let her know that. She took a deep breath and walked right up to her....

“Don’t even think about sitting on me or parking a spaceship on my asteroid or I will totally go ‘troll’ on you!”

Noel was slightly shocked, but very impressed, maybe her sister wouldn’t be so bad after all! “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back the space troll attitude up! First of all, I was a lot younger then and didn’t mean what I said, and the whole spaceship thing, well I was just really upset that you didn’t like my joke”

“Just remember chicken butt, I’m ½ troll too.”

“Ya know what Jo, I think you and I are going to be great friends! C’mon, let’s go play on the monkey bars, I’ll teach you to hang upside down.”