Ursula

I think that for his job, my dad has to have a certain number of hours of conferences in order to maintain his medical license. So every now and then, my dad travels to other states to complete the required amount of conference hours. Usually my dad travels to warmer places like Florida or Texas, so that he can go golfing when he doesn’t have to go to a meeting. But I remember from when I was younger that my dad would go to colder places, like Colorado, so that he could go skiing. On at least one of these occasions, my dad took my older sister, Bethany with him, and she would sit and color during the meetings and then go skiing with my dad afterwards (she was about ten at the time).

This happened such a long time ago, that I don’t remember all of the details, but I do remember that when she left for Colorado, she left me to baby sit her stuffed animal, Ursula. I was probably, four, five, or six at the time, and I was pretty excited to be entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of this little green teddy bear wearing a sunflower dress. I’m not certain, but I think that when my job as Ursula’s care taker had just started, I stayed with Ursula, and would take her with me everywhere I went. But as the excitement of this new job started to wear off, I think I became less enthusiastic about watching Ursula. Don’t get me wrong, I still liked “baby sitting” her, but I think I became less devoted to taking her with me everywhere I went. That’s probably why I would occasionally misplace her.

I vaguely remember that one time, I forgot the last place I had put Ursula, and I became panicked because I had lost her. Eventually though, I did find her, but I think that the prospect of losing probably my sister’s favorite stuffed animal scared me into being more responsible (at least for a while) with Ursula.

I think that the reason I was so excited about having this “baby sitting” job, was because since I was so young, I never really got the chance to be the “adult” and take care of someone else. So having the opportunity to actually be the one to take care of someone (or in this case, something) else made me feel important and more grown up, and I think that that was probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed the job of baby sitting Ursula, the green teddy bear.

I can see similar qualities in regards towards my older brother Ben, and our new puppy Cooper. Ben is twenty-three years old, but has lived with Down’s Syndrome ever since he was born. We have had Cooper for almost two weeks now, and like me and my experience with baby sitting Ursula, I can see Ben enjoying taking care of our new little puppy. I think he likes to feel like he’s in charge of as many situations as possible, because he’s so used to being looked after, I imagine that its really refreshing for him to be the one responsible for someone else.


*picture from: http://cdn2.ioffer.com/img/item/923/733/41/206067556_tp.jpg