I had the honor of babysitting Master Nicholas Saturday night (okay - the text I got was along the lines of "OMG, our babysitter just flaked on us - can you watch Nicholas tonight?") Obviously, I wasn't first choice, but.....I am the first non-family member to get to watch him.

Unfortunately, that means he's not used to being left by Mom and Dad, and after about an hour, he was ready for them to come back. They didn't.  He spent the next 45 minutes crying.  I could distract him for a minute or two, but he was pretty determined that he wanted Mom and Dad to come get him.  (It didn't help that he hadn't napped that day....)

He and I went out to the fire pit and rocked in one of the chairs out there - nice peaceful evening, cool, but not wet, and he started to calm down.  Big sigh....and then he started crying again, and this time, threw up.  It was time to let Mom know, though I hated to ruin her first evening out in a while. (But - it was after 9:00 by now, so I thought we had done pretty good!  They were only supposed to be gone a couple of hours, and had already stretched it to 3 - turns out it was Prom Night, so the restaurant was packed and slow!)

Nicholas and I went back inside, got both of us cleaned up, and sent the text to Mom, just letting her know that Nicholas wasn't a happy camper.  She said they were just getting ready to leave anyway, so would be in shortly.  As soon as I sent the text, Picot came to visit and started talking to me. That got Nicholas's attention!  I sent another text to Mom - never mind - he discovered the cat, and he's perfectly happy again.  

Picot sat on the table for him to pet her.  

Then she moved just out of reach.  (Darn cat!)  

I pulled a chair out for Nicholas and told him he could climb up on the chair and pet the cat.  Next thing I know.....

He spent the next half-hour playing with Picot - she hid just out of reach, and then would come out for a pet.  I told her she was finally good for something!!!