This past month I've celebrated my one-year anniversary, (the steakhouse we went to gave you a free box made of cotton candy. COTTON CANDY. WIN.), grilled a ton of meat for my family's annual Mother's Day grill-a-thon (meat is expensive, yo. And tasty.), had a mini-scare that involved my Dad being put in the hospital (he's fine now, thank God), and yet the thing that may have been the most taxing was babysitting a baby.
We were tag-teaming it, and as we sat in front of the parents, little toddler Lucia was eyeing us up and down with a look of quiet disdain. "Don't worry," said the Mommy. "She's not like those other kids who make a fuss about sleeping. You just give her her bottle and she'll ask to be put to bed."
LIES.
The lying parents lied with the LIES.
Not only did the kid refuse to be put to sleep, she insisted on being carried (apparently I exude some sort of maternal instinct, because she LATCHED on to me), and anytime a bottle came near her she sobbed like we were torturing her and pushed it away.
Finally we reverted into some sort of Mom & Pop cliche with Laura insisting I just put the kid in the cradle and let her cry herself to sleep, and me being a complete marshmallow and begging to give her five more minutes to come to terms with the idea. Finally, sheer exhaustion won out when the baby's eyes were closing even as she was refusing to come near the crib, and she cried about a minute before zonking out.
Kids, man. They don't scare me because I helped raise my gajillion cousins and foster cousins and I know kids, but I'm still constantly surprised when people ask me why I'm in no hurry to have kids of my own when I'm so obviously great with them.
Me: ... have you MET a kid? Have you taken care of one for more than an hour? Do that. Then ask me again.
This is not to say anything against the amazing people who actually HAVE kids, because honestly, I think parenthood is one of the most underrated and rewarding occupations one can have.
Seriously.
But I can't even take care of my fishtank.
Monday, May 17, 2010
In Which Real Life Came About & Swallowed Me Whole...
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Congrats on the anniversary and thanks for the hearty laugh!
ReplyDelete"have you MET a kid?" = hilarious
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