Sure, I'll Sit with the Kids
I've been spending quite a bit of time lately looking after some kids that belong to a good friend (Hi, Good Friend! I'm gonna talk about your kids now!).
My friend has five children and is a single mother, and this means that she is insane a wonderful human being who has achieved the perfect balance between zen-style patience and kick-ass mama: the sort of person who kisses wounds one minute and lays a solid smackdown the next.
Because I do the freelance thing, I can theoretically work from just about anywhere with a wireless connection, including my friend's living room. Watch five kids for nine hours and get work done at the same time? Sure, I said. No problem. I will take a moment to pause here while any parents who read that last sentence get their split sides knitted back together.
Some general observations:
- I am my mother. I accept it. It took me approximately three hours to go from "I am a hip and caring kind of lady who will take pains to be hyper-sensitive to each child's feelings, and we will discuss those feelings at length until everyone is happy" to "You know what? I really don't CARE who started it. Just knock it the hell off already."
- "Quiet Time" is not for the children. The children do not really need to lie quietly in their beds for two hours each afternoon. Quiet time is for me to sit on the couch watching two episodes of "Huff" and trying to forget that I am simultaneously responsible for the well-being of five human beings and the completion of a somewhat complicated software interface design. Hold me, Hank Azaria.
- Radio Disney is beamed to Earth directly from Hell. There can be no other explanation for why I was roused from intense Dreamweaver concentration by the familiar strains of ... wha? ... C&C Music Factory. "Everybody Dance Now!" commanded Radio Disney, and the children complied, the boy performing some sort of spasmodic omage to the Running Man moves of yore. All day it continued. More C&C Music Factory. Usher, I think. Paula Abdul? Mixed in with whatever Top 40 crap the kids listen to nowadays? To which they only know the refrains? That they will sing over and over, long after the radio has been turned off? Right before they put "Lizzie McGuire" in the DVD player? And you start rummaging through the cabinets for a little hemlock with which to flavor your coffee?
- Half of watching five children is tending to their needs. The other half is becoming an Australian Shepherd, doing nothing more than constantly counting heads. "One, two, three, four, five ... whew ... back to work. OK, check again. One, two, three, four ... fuck. Where in God's name is the eight-year-old girl?" On the third floor of the house, that's where. Somehow, within the space of 9 seconds, she has managed to go from sitting contentedly at the dining room table to covering herself in antibacterial hand serum in the attic. This is only possible because apparently, eight-year-old girls have the ability to alter their molecular structure at will, transforming themselves into vapor and floating effortlessly through the floorboards.
- Attention, eight-year-old boys: There is nothing funnier in this world than climbing into a tree for purposes of hiding from the babysitter. A rich tapestry of delight, that was. Remind me when you get to high school to stop by and tell your girlfriends about all the times I saw you in your underpants.
- Which corporate conglomerate can I blame for the fact that the entire series of "Full House" is available on DVD? And why couldn't I turn my eyes away once it was on? Sorry, Client, but I couldn't meet your deadline because I was transfixed by the comedy stylings of Dave Coulier. Hold me, Uncle Jesse.
- Having successfully convinced the six-year-old girl to eat 75% of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I now feel fully qualified to broker a peace accord in Darfur. No, no, Janjaweed, the puppy-dog eyes aren't going to work on me. Three more bites! And STOP KILLING PEOPLE!
- What the hell has happened to homework? Does "No Child Left Behind" contain a "Make Assignments Incomprehensible to Parents" clause? This is an actual homework problem I was forced to proctor: "You'll need either dice or a pack of playing cards with numbers from 0-9. Either roll the dice four times or choose four random cards. Write down the numbers. Now perform all manner of rearranging and calculations on these numbers."
Dear Homework-Writers: I don't know whether you've noticed, but the sort of dice found commonly in households have printed on them only numbers 1-6. Perhaps you are some sort of RPG fanatics in possession of tiny sacks of 10- and 20-sided dice, but many of us do not wile away the hours pretending to be Nosferatu. Also, have you ever seen a deck of cards? Decks of cards do not contain zeros. Or ones. So now you have forced parents (and babysitters) across the land to say things like, "Yes, I know that is not a zero. It is a joker. But we're going to pretend it is a zero. And the ace? It's a one. No, I know it's not really a one, but we're pretending it's a one. I don't care what the homework sheet says. The teacher will not know that we used the ace as a symbolic one. I won't tell her. It's our secret. Let us never speak of this again." How about next time, we just say, "choose 4 numbers between 0-9?" Too simple? Look at it this way, the less time you spend attempting to be clever, the more time you'll have at your disposal to spend making chain-mail tunics and planning the local Renn Faire. Capisce? Love, Kate.
posted by Kate at 11:58 PM link/comments
