On Friday I babysat for some new kids. Well, I know the kids from my daycare center (I’m back at the old one, the new one was evil but for the sake of confidentiality I just won’t go there) but I had never sat for them before. The little one is in my classroom, he’s 3, and I’ll call him Avid Power Ranger Fanatic cause, well, that’s what he is. He’s this cute little butterball of a boy who has somehow managed to cultivate some weird sort of odd Brooklyn-esque accent despite being born and bred in Pittsburgh. He is also probably one of the most headstrong, willful, stubborn kids I’ve ever encountered as often times the brighter kids are. I hadn’t inflicted any severe damage on myself recently so I figured, why not take his mom up on a babysitting job. The evening went down like this…
I arrived at APRF’s house at 5:30 like his mom had told me to do. I rang the bell and waited. And rang the bell and waited. Began to get annoyed cause I had cut short Cabana time to help this woman out with her babysitting dilemma and now she wasn’t here with the babysittees. Before calling her cell phone I opted to knock…maybe the bell was broken. After my knock I heard a voice and a rustling from inside. The older brother finally opened the door, holding his cell phone and looking anxious.
“My mom told me to never open the door when I’m home alone so I had to call her and check to see if it was ok.”
“Sure,” I replied, openly respectful of the kid’s responsibility factor.
Then the fun really began as he paced around the room and glanced continuously out the window while telling me about summer camp. I began to feel an urgent sense of dread. Dear god, I thought, I have absolutely no interest in what this kid is rambling on about. How the hell am I ever going to be a good mom if I can only tolerate kids until they are 4 years old?? I’m semi-horrified that I find small humans that frequently sit in mounds of their own poo while rivers of slime pour from their noses and dangle gelatinously from their upper lips more engaging than a well intentioned, responsible nine year old.
Finally mom arrived with APRF in tow, sucking on a binky and telling me that he got a time out from his new black power ranger. This is apparently pretty devastating, despite the other two “old” black power rangers that he has scrounged up and shoved into a box that he is calling a rocket. Just then dad showed up with two pizzas and breadsticks. I got the general rundown of things and instructions to take the kids to the park and then mom and dad left, big brother took some pizza upstairs to eat in front of the tv and I was left trying to figure out how to get APRF to eat his pizza. After he lost interest in his Thomas the Tank Engine train set we went to the dining room and I put a slice and a breadstick on his plate, handed him his sippy cup and sat down to eat as well. we conversed about the crucial stuff, like how I wasn’t his mom’s first choice to babysit and how he would go back to school after “the sleep” aka night time. After several minutes of this dialogue the kid said, “I’m done” and started to get up. Then he sat down and said “I want more pizza” so I gave him another slice.
He took a nibble. “I’m done.” And he got up and went to the door. “I’m ready to go to the pawk”.
“You have to go potty first.”
“Nooooo! Yucky!”
“There’s no potty at the park and we don’t want you to peepee in your underwear.”
“Put me in a diapaw.”
“Look here, APRF, Mommy didn’t put a diaper int he travel bag. Your blue Power Ranger underwear are in there.”
At that APRF shuffled off into the bathroom while I cleared the table. Seconds later the bathroom doorknob rattled. “Let me out” he cried. So I did. And then I got a 10 minute demonstration of how to dump the potty pot into the real toilet (”you have to get aaallll the peepee out”). Then he looked up at me with longing eyes and said, “Now give me my blue Powew Rangew pants!”
We finally left the house to go to the pawk, er, the park and the whole way older brother regaled me with useless nine year old societal commentary while I tried to disarm APRF of the stick he was swinging at random imaginary evil monsters. Until we stumbled upon a massacred bird’s nest. First we saw a dead baby bird on the sidewalk, covered in flies, as dead things on a hot day often are.
“Woah” older brother gasped, turning an odd shade of grayish green.
“It’s ok,” I mumbled, trying to keep my own stomach from turning.
But then there was another one, and another, and a fourth, all a sickish shade of blue, featherless, and frozen into awful, open beaked death poses, naked and decomposing all around us. I grabbed the wee one’s hand and looked straight ahead, sidestepping the grisly scene, all the while reassuring older brother that it was ok, it couldn’t hurt us, and that we would walk back on the other side of the street. Once we were a few yards past the carnage I glanced at the older kid and asked if he was okay. He said yes but I could tell he was pretty upset. Hell, I was pretty upset. I mean, I realize it’s nature’s way and all but ugh, that was pretty harsh.
So we finally got to the park and I chased APRF around the climbers and slides while older brother tried to see how high he could get on the swings. APRF had climbed to the top of a climber and was doing some funny little running dance on the narrow metal catwalk above the slide when he suddeny l stopped and looked at me.
“Kowie”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna poop in my undeweah.”
“NO! Hold it! Can you hold it? Hold it! I’m coming up there!”
In one swift move I chucked the kid’s pants, yanked the spare diaper (yeah I had lied about being out of diapers….I’m an evil manipulative bitch, I know) out of the travel bag and slapped it on him with the expertise of a seasoned daycare worker who can change 17 two year olds while they’re standing up in under 30 minutes. Then I briskly pulled up his pants and we clambered back down to the ground.
On the way home (on the other side of the street) we stopped at the corner market and both boys picked a donut for dessert. They wanted the same donut and there was only one, so I got it and told them it was for both of them. When we got back, APRF asked for the donut so older brother went and split it.
“NOOOOO!” the wee one shrieked at full volume, “I. Want. My. DONUT!”
“Sweetie,” I cajoled, nearing the end of my rope at this point, “the donut is for both of you to share. I didn’t have enough to but you both a donut.”
“But he’s gonna eat it ALL! I WAAAANT IT!”
I gritted my teeth and smiled angelically. “You can share the donut. There’s enough for both of you.”
“NOOOOO!“

OK, so basically play that soundtrack for twenty more minutes in your head. When your ear drums feel like they’ve been peppered with red hot glass shrapnel and your brain starts hemorrhaging like mine did feel free to fast forward to bed time. The little one picked Rumble in the Jungle for his story and after every animal he asked “Why?” Approximately 10 “whys” later (and I am one of those morons who does indeed come up with an answer to each why that fits toddler logic) I tucked APRF in and settled in with older brother to watch some Drake and Josh on Tivo. Sadly, I laughed ten times harder at the slapstick ‘tween comedy than the nine year old.

My only explanation is that my brain had leaked out from the tatters that were my middle ear. Further brain leakage probably explains why I’m babysitting again for them this upcoming weekend.