I was in Arizona last week, hanging with my sister and her family. She’s got a 6 year old and 16 month old, both boys. I offered my babysitting services, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Pretty ironic, considering that not only do I not have children, but I am rarely around them.
Day One: The sister and brother-in-law leave for work, the 6 year old goes to school. Now it’s just me and the baby. It is 8:30am. This won’t be bad, I think. He’s a peanut of a person. Well let me tell you, peanuts can MOVE. He heads for the doggie door (which he can fit through because it is for their 150 lbs English Mastiff). I block him. He cries and then makes a break for the lamp on the end table. I block him. He bounces over to a box of toys and starts pulling everything out. He brings me a dog chew toy. He jumps into his plastic car. Back to the doggie door again. Another block, more crying. I try to get him to sit down with a book but he won’t stop moving. I check the time; it’s only 8:32am. Really?!
By 9:30am he was getting grumpy (and I was exhausted) so I put him down for a nap. I took one, too. An hour later we both woke up and I fed him…on the run. Lesson learned: If you don’t put a baby in his high chair, expect to chase him around the house, shoving pieces of ravioli into his mouth. He was like a mini-criminal on the lam. You couldn’t stop this kid! After awhile, I gave up the Doggie Door Block and let him go outside. I followed him, curious about what he was going to do. It pretty much went down like this: Splash in the dog’s water dish, play in the sandbox, more splashing in the water, run over to the play-set, pretend to want to play with the toy lawn mower, watch your aunt pretend to cut the grass, then back to the water dishes… Time: 12:08pm. I couldn’t help but wonder if 9-1-1 worked in Arizona, because I needed saving.
1:15pm: Time for a snack. He was wet and sandy, so I stripped him down to his diaper. I figured now was a good time to take some pictures...”Proof of Life,” if you will, since I had no idea what the future held. I found a container of blueberries and stuffed his hands and cheeks with them. I later found blueberries on the coffee table, on top of the garbage can, in the dog food…
They say time flies when you’re having fun (or chasing a toddler), and before I knew it, the other kid was due to get picked up from school. I threw clothes on the baby, stuffed him into his car seat, and went to the school.
3:15pm – We go to McDonald’s. I asked the 6 yr old what he wants to eat, he says 10 Chicken Nuggets and French fries. It sounds like a lot of food to me, but hey, he should know how much he can eat, right? We get our order and head to the play area. I see kids in plastic highchairs and I’m too ashamed to ask the ‘real’ moms where they got them. I am trying to pretend I’m a mom, too - all the while I have a 6 year old who has opened 4 Sweet & Sour sauce containers and dipped a nugget in each one, and a toddler on my lap who is sucking Sweet & Sour sauce straight from the container. I’m not fooling anyone.
3:27pm – The kids get done eating and want to play in the playground. I tell the 6 yr old to keep an eye on his brother, and they both disappear into the labyrinth of plastic tubes and crawl spaces. I sit at the miniature picnic table and do breathing exercises.
3:45pm – I can see the 6 yr old but the baby has gone MIA. I grab my older nephew and send him up a plastic tube slide – “Go find your brother and bring him out!” To everyone else, this was just a playground. To me, it was now a search-and-rescue military op. My sister sends a text to check in: How are the kids? I respond by telling her everyone is fine, but I’ve been sending her older son into the playground on recon missions. I see the Marines in his future.
4:30pm – The kids are sweaty and tired. I put them in the car and we head back home. I find the loudest, brightest kids’ show on TV and put it on. It distracts them for a bit, long enough for me to go to the bathroom. I think I forgot to wipe. It doesn’t even matter.
6:00pm – The 6 yr old tells me that “At six – zero – zero Mom gives him (the baby) a bath.” I look over at the toddler, who is now eating pieces of dog food as he crawls up the stove. “Let’s go, buddy,” I say and scoop him up. He licks my face. I barely notice.
6:07pm – I toss him in the tub and scrub him down. When I attempt to dry him off, though, he sits and won’t budge. So I dried off his top half and picked him up. Dangling over the tub, I (lightly) shake him back and forth to get the excess water off from his waist down. He giggles (doesn’t it figure that he’d like it?) so I shake him some more and wrap him up in the towel. Note to the public: The child is fine, he does not have Shaken Baby Syndrome, so calm down.
6:23pm – I find one-piece pajamas. I ask Nephew # 1 if his brother wears these, he answers in the affirmative so I squish the baby into them. He’s squiggling as I stuff his chubby thighs into the suit – why can’t kids hold still, ever?? I barely get him zippered up when I hear the garage door open. MOM’S HOME, THANK GOD! We run downstairs and the little guy is psyched to see his mother. Had she not taken the baby from me, I would have jumped into her arms.
Needless to say, I survived my time out there, but it was very much like an extended, drunken night – I found several mystery bruises all over my body when I got back home and I have no memory of how I got them. However, I can proudly declare that I didn’t even cry. Not once. But I still think I’ll stick to dogs.
