Poisoning Children

My nanny duties aren't exactly detailed. Spoken duties include vague, "if you can" statements referring to laundry, math, and meals. Unspoken duties include keeping two children alive.

So I wake up and decide what I want to do. Then I remember I have children, and I modify my wishes. The modified wishes usually involve the outdoors. With children who would rather read and play video games for all of eternity, this is sometimes difficult. But when I can, I drag the children outside and pretend that nothing we ever do will benefit me in any way. I think they like things that way.

I like to go to this nature preserve nearby.

Mostly, the kids do not.

As we hike along, the smaller one obtains the coveted "front" position and then lets me in on one of his many dislikes.

"I hate gween."

He must be in hell.


But, as it turns out, the kid had a good reason for hating green.

Sometimes green comes in the form of a plant with mitten-shaped leaves. Sometimes that plant decides to eat children's faces.


So the kitchen counter looked like this for the next few days:

And we stayed indoors. Them watching super hero movies, me doing household chores. Awesome.

And I felt for the kid. I did. Poison ivy once devoured my own visage way back when.

But seriously. The boy is not helpless:

Destroy the green!

Bikes to Babies

A few weeks ago I got on a train. Because, honestly. I was so done with Chicago.

You hear that Chicago? DONE. No more of your WIND. No more of your LIGHTS. No more of your CROWDS.

Except for where would I go? My family's in Ohio so... I think I'll go to Missouri.

Wait--What?

I took a train to St. Louis to meet a biking partner and relative stranger. But biking partners are winners always. No need for background knowledge. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

Seriously. Harmless:

So my harmless stranger and I set off with a notion to head in the direction of Bardstown, Kentucky. Which is sort of silly. Because I had nothing in Bardstown, Kentucky. I had never even heard of Bardstown, Kentucky. But The Stranger had a friend there. And, being merely the annoying tag-along, I had no preference for direction. So ride we did.

And despite the parts where I was convinced I was deranged for deciding to do this little tour, biking was fun. Really fun. And pretty.

And fast!

20? Pleeease. I could beat that with my eyes closed.

...Okay not really. Well I mean, I could. But it would be on a nice downhill. And I wouldn't have my eyes closed.

Maybe he would.

He seems to like having his eyes closed. But not me.

Except for here's the thing about this 'him' guy. You see this seemingly relaxed pose?

Oh um. He's actually in extreme pain. And laying like this because he can't really stand. Let alone ride a bicycle for another 150 miles. Because he is an old man with old man back problems. That flare up at the most inopportune times. Well. I suppose there isn't really an opportune time for one's back to go out...

Anyway. The stranger-inclusive leg of the trip was cut a bit short.

Which is unfortunate. Because now? Well now I'm not exactly on a bicycle touring adventure.

Now I'm a nanny in rural Ohio. Which means I'm a housewife with no husband. Also no catty housewife peers.

And those days when I was thinking I was delusional for hopping on a bicycle to nowhere? My mind is frantically archiving every demented moment. Because I'll need to quickly and efficiently access those moments as I'm making yet another bland, kid-friendly meal or wiping my billionth drop of milk from the table. And it is really too bad that I don't have more archives.

Summer? Start over? Please?

So no. I'm no longer treking randomly across the middle of the United States with a few smelly articles of clothing. In fact. Instead of never having the opportunity to do laundry, I am forced to do multiple loads a day for two dirty little boys.

But you know? At least having lots of clothes to clean means occasionally I get to stumble upon something like this:

Which gets its own little mind archive, you know?

IRON MAN!

Sunshine and Super Powers

Yesterday? Gorgeous. Not a single cloud. All day. And maybe that's what put me in a mood to have fun babysitting.

Or maybe it's because I felt so good after saving a small child's life. Okay so he probably wouldn't have died, but swings hurt. Especially if you're very tiny and the girl on the swing is not. Yes, I stepped up to the plate right as a small unknowing little boy was about to get the wind knocked out of him. His mother looked on helplessly since she was occupied by an even tinier child. She yelled something at the kid in another language, but this kid definitely did not put any stock in his mother's screechy warnings. I immediately stopped pushing The Cops' Kid to run and scoop up the little guy and place him nearer his mother and new sibling.

SuperChristin!

But SuperChristin's job was not done. The little boy started whimpering and clinging to me having seemingly decided I was a much more attentive mother. Mom was still struggling with the baby trying to attach it to her back with a piece of decorative baby-attaching cloth. She stood up repeating 'thank you' clearly not knowing many other English words. Then she handed me the other child, and said, "Help me?" At first, I thought she just wanted me to hold the kid for a minute. Then she bent over in front of me and patted her back. Slowly understanding the odd task put before me, I placed the baby belly-down on the woman's back. She tied herself up, repeated 'thank you' a few more times, and went about following her older and dangerously curious child.

Sadly, they didn't stay long, obviously not realizing a super hero had rescued a third of their group.

But. SuperChristin's job is never really done, you know?

Earlier that day The Cops' Kid learned to ride a bike sans training wheels. She couldn't get started without her dad or I holding onto this funny-looking attached device, but still.

Pretty big accomplishment.

Before SuperChristin The Cops' Kid was just riding on the wide open tennis courts.

Super heroes get kids to ride on sidewalks.

Before SuperChristin The Cops' Kid was reliant on adults beginning the balancing act for her.

Super heroes get kids to start bicycles independently.

Or okay, maybe it was her own initiative and perseverance.

Or maybe it was the powers of The Heart Throb.

I know if I had had The Heart Throb when learning to ride, I would have been doing wheelies and skid-stops in 30 seconds flat.

Yeah, I'm now sure that it wasn't The Cops' Kid at all. The powers of The Heart Throb and SuperChristin combined just couldn't be messed with.

So I don't know why she was so thirsty afterward.

It's not like she taught herself to ride a bike or anything.

SuperChristin!

Playing Pretend

I babysit. I cannot escape it. It is practically a career by now. And here in Chicago? I babysit for cops. Yet I haven't had the fortune of riding my cute little red bicycle over to The Cops' house for over a week now. And even that last time was only for a few short hours before I high-tailed it out of there.

The time before that? It was a Friday. And I was there for five hours. Five. Now in normal babysitting terms that's nothing. I mean, please. Last summer I was a full-time nanny for goodness sake. Five hours should not faze me. But the Cops' girl is an only child for whom I am there to entertain. For an entertainer five hours is a pretty heft shift.

Now the Cops' girl never really gets in trouble at school. Always gets stickers on all her papers. Always gets her hand stamped for not moving her I-did-something-teacher-didn't-like magnet or whatever it is. And since Friday was Parent-Teacher conferences, the Cops took her to McDonald's as a reward.

This is what came of that. The Cops' girl did not know what it was exactly, although her father deduced it was from a new movie about aliens. And monsters. Because one just isn't enough.

In any case the movie did not matter. Its name was now Gooshie. And Gooshie would accompany us for the whole five hours. Gooshie would be right there with me trying to avoid any games of playing pretend.

And we almost made it home-free.

Until I was forced to say yes to a game of 'store.'
She'd been asking to play 'store' for days. Presumably because of this as yet unused birthday present. I finally caved.

But this thing was no ordinary toy. It really scanned bar codes. And amplified your voice when you spoke into the microphone. So I was having a better-than-normal pretend experience playing with this advanced device. Except for this cash register must have once belonged to some storefront along kiddie mag mile. Because everything was like 50 bucks. Including my mouth which apparently resembles a bar code.

The Cops' girl did not like not having enough pretend money to pay for the items she already owned.

So for the last 20 minutes we switched to play-doh.

Neither I nor Gooshie complained.