Tuesday, November 30, 2004
You Can Eat the Food and Hog the Phone.
We've been mulling over the idea around here about trying to find a babysitter. And actually having them come over to watch our child. While we're out. Someone not related. Who doesn't really love him. I know, I know, I'm PATHETIC. Make fun of me, point and laugh, if you like. But even for the desperate, this is still a tough concept to get used to when you've had good ole grandma to rely on. But he's getting old enough to handle it now, and we just don't want to wait another fifiteen years to go out (together) or to get some work on our house done, and we can only get so much mileage out of my poor, beleagured mother who also babysits three other grandkids around here (think four-year-old twins and three-day weekends) and just got back from a week-long babysitting spree in Arizona (actually those kids are perfect and the house is like the Hyatt, so it's not too bad. I mean, it's Arizona). I don't think I should squeeze too much more out of her. She's a sprighty sixty-five, but I think she raised her kids already.
And really, now that he goes to sleep easily and without some exhausted grown up rocking him to sleep, there's really no excuse to dawdle on the issue. It will be painful to pay someone when we can just stay in (again) and be here ourselves for free, but that's the thinking that's making us even more boring. We should budget accordingly to get out. Now. I hear they even take safety training coures these days. Even if we can't seem to find a sitter and no nice neighhors will share the name of theirs. But I know they're out there, because I have my own lovely babysitting memories. I remember there being like this underground, Junior High Babysitting Network of girls, and really we should have had a main coordinator and charged finding fees and formed a union. We probably would have been treated better that way. If you got a call and you didn't want to do it, you'd give them your friend Jill's number, or if Jill didn't want to, you'd get a call from some folks you'd never heard of who threw out Jill's name and then expected you to come to their house on a dark Friday night. Or you'd always get the call from the one family after they called your best friend, because they didn't know you were best friends, and how I hated being the second stringer.
There was no CPR training, (ha) no asking for references or interviewing or anything, no emergency contact number. Just pizza and a little money. Which was nice, but I remember once being picked up in the dark by a man who then deposited me at their house with their kids, whose names I couldn't remember. When they got settled down in front of The Golden Girls, I called my mom, as I was supposed to. Only I couldn't tell her where I was because I realized I didn't pay attention when we drove there because he kept grilling me about what I was learning in math, and it was dark. And no, I didn't know their phone number. Name? Uh. I don't know? But shit, I was like 14, what the hell was their excuse? I could have invited the freshman mushroom dealer over for twister with the kids. They couldn't have known I was a perfectly safe dork just by looking at me. Or is that just what happens by the time you've had your kids for seven or eight years? You sort of don't care?
And then there was the guy who told me to absolutely NOT eat the carrots, because he LOVES his carrots, and the parents who would leave their Joy of Sex book right in the center of the coffee table (really, it wasn't cool, if you knew them). And it was always the parents with the most horribly behaved kids who expected you to make them EAT THEIR PEAS, and to NOT LET THEM LEAVE THE TABLE WITHOUT EATING THEIR PEAS. But this would be the child who would try and bash the television with a baseball bat, so give it up with the fucking peas, lady. I mean really. That was the woman who told another member of the network that I hit her kid. And no, I didn't. Sometimes, children lie. I guess I should be happy I wasn't molested or anything. I mean no one was ever creepy. But some were definitely less than stellar examples of grown ups. I know it's hard to shell out good money just because you want to go out after a long week, but $3.75 wasn't that much, even in 1987, and I'd get really annoyed when they'd pay me less than they said, or forget to pay me, or pay me at the end of a five-day stint and then pay me a total that amounted to like fifty cents an hour because I guess it was too painful to pay me to watch tv at their house. But you know what? I didn't want to watch tv at their house. It wasn't like a treat or anything. I had a tv. And then there was the people on a date who didn't tell me that the guy's daughter was supposed to "bed down" (couldn't they just say 'share a bed?') with her future step-sister, so I got in trouble for letting her stay up. And you're too young and shy and insecure to be like, "Know what? You didn't tell me. No, really. Shut up. You didn't tell me. Thank you. Take me home now."
I suppose there were some bad sitters out there, but I never heard of anyone doing anything more wild than eating the food. And I don't know if they had the little video surveillance stuff then, but I sure hope at least someone videotaped me, at least later on, so they can see how I never left a kid alone and basically became a contortionist so I could watch the big kids and still feed the baby and keep everyone in sight. I may have been completely incapable of standing up to parents and I would have been useless in an emergency, but I was otherwise responsbile, whatever good that was. And I did have a few good families to sit for, or at the least uneventful familes. Two, especially. Two families were really great, but they knew my parents and lived on my block, so I'm thinking that might have something to do with it.
My first summer after college, when I didn't get the summer job at Haagen Daz, I used me Bachelor of Arts in German literature and art history to take up the art of babysitting again, and fared a little better. That time, a couple people forgot to pay me, but I forgive the single mothers. I regret I didn't offer to go over to her house every day for an hour or two for free. I had no idea then how hard it was. And sometimes they mistook me for a dual sitting/cleaning service, but at least they were nice. I had low standards, by that point. So maybe it's something about being fifteen that garners the below-minimum wage pay and lectures on peas and carrots. I don't know. I know now that it's hard to be parents, but I also know I'm not going to complete the cycle and take it out on the fourteen-year-old girl that might show up at our house one of these Friday nights. Yeah, I might be the biggest freak she's met about my emergency training and emergency contact sheet and showing her where the flash light is in case of a black out, but hey, at least she'll know where she is.
And really, now that he goes to sleep easily and without some exhausted grown up rocking him to sleep, there's really no excuse to dawdle on the issue. It will be painful to pay someone when we can just stay in (again) and be here ourselves for free, but that's the thinking that's making us even more boring. We should budget accordingly to get out. Now. I hear they even take safety training coures these days. Even if we can't seem to find a sitter and no nice neighhors will share the name of theirs. But I know they're out there, because I have my own lovely babysitting memories. I remember there being like this underground, Junior High Babysitting Network of girls, and really we should have had a main coordinator and charged finding fees and formed a union. We probably would have been treated better that way. If you got a call and you didn't want to do it, you'd give them your friend Jill's number, or if Jill didn't want to, you'd get a call from some folks you'd never heard of who threw out Jill's name and then expected you to come to their house on a dark Friday night. Or you'd always get the call from the one family after they called your best friend, because they didn't know you were best friends, and how I hated being the second stringer.
There was no CPR training, (ha) no asking for references or interviewing or anything, no emergency contact number. Just pizza and a little money. Which was nice, but I remember once being picked up in the dark by a man who then deposited me at their house with their kids, whose names I couldn't remember. When they got settled down in front of The Golden Girls, I called my mom, as I was supposed to. Only I couldn't tell her where I was because I realized I didn't pay attention when we drove there because he kept grilling me about what I was learning in math, and it was dark. And no, I didn't know their phone number. Name? Uh. I don't know? But shit, I was like 14, what the hell was their excuse? I could have invited the freshman mushroom dealer over for twister with the kids. They couldn't have known I was a perfectly safe dork just by looking at me. Or is that just what happens by the time you've had your kids for seven or eight years? You sort of don't care?
And then there was the guy who told me to absolutely NOT eat the carrots, because he LOVES his carrots, and the parents who would leave their Joy of Sex book right in the center of the coffee table (really, it wasn't cool, if you knew them). And it was always the parents with the most horribly behaved kids who expected you to make them EAT THEIR PEAS, and to NOT LET THEM LEAVE THE TABLE WITHOUT EATING THEIR PEAS. But this would be the child who would try and bash the television with a baseball bat, so give it up with the fucking peas, lady. I mean really. That was the woman who told another member of the network that I hit her kid. And no, I didn't. Sometimes, children lie. I guess I should be happy I wasn't molested or anything. I mean no one was ever creepy. But some were definitely less than stellar examples of grown ups. I know it's hard to shell out good money just because you want to go out after a long week, but $3.75 wasn't that much, even in 1987, and I'd get really annoyed when they'd pay me less than they said, or forget to pay me, or pay me at the end of a five-day stint and then pay me a total that amounted to like fifty cents an hour because I guess it was too painful to pay me to watch tv at their house. But you know what? I didn't want to watch tv at their house. It wasn't like a treat or anything. I had a tv. And then there was the people on a date who didn't tell me that the guy's daughter was supposed to "bed down" (couldn't they just say 'share a bed?') with her future step-sister, so I got in trouble for letting her stay up. And you're too young and shy and insecure to be like, "Know what? You didn't tell me. No, really. Shut up. You didn't tell me. Thank you. Take me home now."
I suppose there were some bad sitters out there, but I never heard of anyone doing anything more wild than eating the food. And I don't know if they had the little video surveillance stuff then, but I sure hope at least someone videotaped me, at least later on, so they can see how I never left a kid alone and basically became a contortionist so I could watch the big kids and still feed the baby and keep everyone in sight. I may have been completely incapable of standing up to parents and I would have been useless in an emergency, but I was otherwise responsbile, whatever good that was. And I did have a few good families to sit for, or at the least uneventful familes. Two, especially. Two families were really great, but they knew my parents and lived on my block, so I'm thinking that might have something to do with it.
My first summer after college, when I didn't get the summer job at Haagen Daz, I used me Bachelor of Arts in German literature and art history to take up the art of babysitting again, and fared a little better. That time, a couple people forgot to pay me, but I forgive the single mothers. I regret I didn't offer to go over to her house every day for an hour or two for free. I had no idea then how hard it was. And sometimes they mistook me for a dual sitting/cleaning service, but at least they were nice. I had low standards, by that point. So maybe it's something about being fifteen that garners the below-minimum wage pay and lectures on peas and carrots. I don't know. I know now that it's hard to be parents, but I also know I'm not going to complete the cycle and take it out on the fourteen-year-old girl that might show up at our house one of these Friday nights. Yeah, I might be the biggest freak she's met about my emergency training and emergency contact sheet and showing her where the flash light is in case of a black out, but hey, at least she'll know where she is.
Friday, November 19, 2004
No-Big-Deal Mommy
We're in a daddy phase over here, and I'm not going to lie and pretend that it doesn't sometimes get my jockeys all in a bunch. Yes, daddy is great- Yay Daddy- (HI DADDY) but when Mommy takes care of Casimir all the live long day, it would be nice if he occasionally said "Mommy." Lately it's all Daddy, all the time. He wakes up from his nap and calls out for Daddy. He grabs his dad's pjs from the bed, cuddles them and says cheerfully, "Daddy!" He walks around finding pictures of us, points to his savior, and screeches, "Daddy!" When Mommy-chopped-liver points out her martyred self in the picture and says "Mommy?" he answers with, of course, Daddy and a pudgy figner point to Le Daddy. He even (mistakenly, obviously) pointed to a picture of this guy in a magazine, and thinking Daddy was famous, said, Daddy!
Such is life when one person drudges at work all day and the other is trapped in a Cleaver bubble all day. It would be so nice if we could split our time. But no. I get to be taken for granted and deal with his adorable "Daddy?" questions every ten minutes from 4:30 p.m. onward, and he gets to be the extra special, coveted one because he is so often gone. So in a way, I still win. Nyah nyah.
****
Things Casimir has done on his potty-training potty, to prepare for the big training period, when he will actually use it:
1. sat quietly, holding his balloon and looking cute
2. read (looked at pictures) US Magazine
3. ate goldfish
Such is life when one person drudges at work all day and the other is trapped in a Cleaver bubble all day. It would be so nice if we could split our time. But no. I get to be taken for granted and deal with his adorable "Daddy?" questions every ten minutes from 4:30 p.m. onward, and he gets to be the extra special, coveted one because he is so often gone. So in a way, I still win. Nyah nyah.
****
Things Casimir has done on his potty-training potty, to prepare for the big training period, when he will actually use it:
1. sat quietly, holding his balloon and looking cute
2. read (looked at pictures) US Magazine
3. ate goldfish
Monday, November 08, 2004
Unicorns are OK.
I was going to post a few days ago with some title like OHMYGOD NO or maybe something like HOLY FUCKING SHIT NOT AGAIN or, perhaps, WE'RE FUCKED, but I decided to just leave it and pretend that nothing like an election happened, and that I didn't actually go vote while my little son tried to kick the voting booth down. (*plugs hears and sings* LALALALA) Because I wouldn't want to get unpleasantly dramatic or anything. I thought I was going to wake up to a new president, and do a tra-la-la dance into Casimir's room one morning. But I think it was all just a dream, because when I woke up, there was nothing to tra-la-la about. It was the same. Anyway. I do feel safer with another four years of Bush. Because thank god there won't be any gay married people running in the streets any time soon! Phew is right.
But I love it when I'm totally annoyed that our country is so divided and half of it actually voted for Bush and then in between my grimacing I catch a glimpse of Casimir's profile as I lift him out of the car, his face just peeking out of his hood, smiling at the sky and the passing truck. I love when that happens. The second part, I mean.
---
What you will thankfully not find in your child's textbook, due to my evening's work:
"Diagram: This image shows the head as if a slice has been made through the center. Colors help you see the parts."
Don't you just love that? It's called a cross-section people! I think they can learn that word by junior high. Jeesh. Someone promote me. And I thought my run-on sentences were bad. I mean, EEW.
And just when you think the textbooks are getting a little too uptight, be assured, that while witchcraft, mystical happenings, astrology or vampires will never make their way into the text, unicorns are okay. At least where I work. Thank god for that memo. I mean I knew some people were calling Harry Potter blasphemy, but I never realized unicorns were harbingers of evil and anathema to morality. It's not like people put unicorns up in their yard at Halloween.
This post has been sponsored by Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper.
But I love it when I'm totally annoyed that our country is so divided and half of it actually voted for Bush and then in between my grimacing I catch a glimpse of Casimir's profile as I lift him out of the car, his face just peeking out of his hood, smiling at the sky and the passing truck. I love when that happens. The second part, I mean.
---
What you will thankfully not find in your child's textbook, due to my evening's work:
"Diagram: This image shows the head as if a slice has been made through the center. Colors help you see the parts."
Don't you just love that? It's called a cross-section people! I think they can learn that word by junior high. Jeesh. Someone promote me. And I thought my run-on sentences were bad. I mean, EEW.
And just when you think the textbooks are getting a little too uptight, be assured, that while witchcraft, mystical happenings, astrology or vampires will never make their way into the text, unicorns are okay. At least where I work. Thank god for that memo. I mean I knew some people were calling Harry Potter blasphemy, but I never realized unicorns were harbingers of evil and anathema to morality. It's not like people put unicorns up in their yard at Halloween.
This post has been sponsored by Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper.
