Dec 29th, 2005 by Jesse Moore
Kami and I are babysitting tonight - which at the moment means that Kami's snoring on the couch and I'm typing this post with an ear tilted in the general direction of two sleeping babes (three if you count Kami). I do my best to help out when we babysit, but in general, babysitting consists of me casually observing - making sure that Kami isn't at risk at losing a handfull of hair or having an earring pulled all the way through a lobe. Which, at the end of a night, warrants her sleeping on the couch as we wait for the parents to return.I've mentioned to a couple of friends a story about recently taking a client out, and my horror as she put her petri dish/bacterial incubator/crumb sponge/child's seat in the back seat of my freshly vacuumed car (with black interior). To be fair (to myself), it wasn't the child seat in and of itself, but the debris that fell from it, which included a wine cork (are these the new teething rings?). I mention this only because I may take the same hands-off approach to babysitting overall. I love kids, but I'm kind of a clean freak - I don't like wet fingers laced with peach juice poking in my ear or grabbing at my shirt. Still, once you've had a chance to hose down the little rascals, it's pretty neat to sit with them and watch "The Incredibles," looking down at them from time to time, watching them meet your gaze and enthusiastically stick out their tongue.
I would guess that over half of our friends now have kids, and those friends will all tell me that my time will come, and eventually it won't gross me out at all when a kid pulls a mostly chewed banana out of their mouth for their parent to suck off their finger. But for now...well, I have to cover my mouth thinking about it. I do appreciate the vulnerability of being a parent, the complete lack of concern of certain things that used to illustrate the firm grip of control you had on the world around you. Of course, I'm happy at this point to be in a position to merely appreciate such a lack of control - not quite sure that I'm ready to be an active participant in the exile of it.
Jesse,
I know you easily get grossed out when it comes to kids and food.
With my own kids I can handle most things… the other day however Tia comes walking in with some string cheese and offered me a bite. I pretended to eat it as I often do and a good thing I did because we hadn’t given her any string cheese that day. She had found it in her purse from who knows when.
Good thing she didn’t eat it either, Darby (our dog) took her up on the offer to have a bite. So if you every have Tia watching duties be careful of food she offers you… Bon Appetit!
HANDYWIPES, LOTS OF HANDYWIPES….!
And don’t worry, you’ll come to a point in time when you’re vacuming and your child comes across an old raisin on the floor and even after they show it to you and ask to eat it, you say “It’s Okay, go ahead and eat it”, and they don’t get sick or anything…we draw the line at “No food off the floor of restaurants” which ours has tried to do and even though he loves to pick up garbage off of the floor at home, we let him know that it’s ok to leave really garbage alone at restaurants…(Jone’s house was fun, looking forward to the next time we meet up at a Johnson/Degan function…)
I love my little jack jack!!