Babysitting.

One of the things you notice about getting older is that you stop caring that your Friday night consists of The Office reruns and takeout. It's not just that the party's over, it's that you don't even notice it's over. I spent about three years transitioning from the action-packed weekend to one where a night out at the movies is, like, really exciting. First it's going out Friday and staying in Saturday. Then it's laughing about the fact that you're gonna stay in both nights, calling yourself an "old-fart" to friends who ask what your plans are. And then, suddenly, you're no longer qualifying how boring your weekend is. That's just what it is, and it's normalcy is so ingrained it takes an actual night out to notice.

So I didn't exactly have any grandiose plans in place this Friday when Jason called me on his way home from work. A screening of Bruno was on the agenda, and maybe some frozen lasagna. But Jason had other ideas.

"Guess what we're doing tonight?" he asked.

"Being old farts?"

"Yes. And babysitting."

So he tells me that at the last minute he agreed we would watch his former cousin's four-week old baby (it's his first cousin's ex-husband's child with his new wife, to be exact).

About an hour later, there was a baby sitting in my living room.

Until a month ago, I had never even seen a baby. Never held one, never smelled one, never touched one. And then my friend Morgan's sister took my baby-holding virginity and let me hold her adorable three-week old daughter. And last week I met my friend Jaclyn's oh-so perfect two-week old. And now, here I was, actually responsible for one for a whole three hours.

We spent the first ten minutes oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the little guy (who had the most impossibly full head of black hair and chubby cheeks that would put my Prednisone days to shame). He was quiet, and smiley, and Louie was terrified and sat watching his future. I watched Jason hold him and rock him and sat watching my future.

And then the pretty little moment was over and the crying began.

For the next three hours, we tried every possible thing we could think of to make the formerly adorable baby be quiet. We fed him, we burped him, we rocked him, we sang to him, Jason played guitar for him, we bounced him, we held him, we laid him down, we changed him, we pleaded with him. Nothing worked.

Minutes before his parents came to pick him up, he miraculously fell asleep. And they walked into what looked like an idyllic picture, their son asleep with his pacifier in his carseat, the babysitters looking happy and relieved. And I spent the rest of my night trying to convince myself that it will just be different when it's my child. I'll be able to make her stop crying. I'll be able to tolerate her noise. I'll be able to retain a semblance of my sanity.

Read more...

My only real experience with kids.

For about ten months during my sophomore year of college, I was a nanny.

I couldn't tell you why I did it. I'm not good with kids. I've never particularly liked them. I don't have any experience that would make a sweet, naive young couple think I was qualified to take care of their 2, 4 and 7 year old girls. But I answered an ad from my university's job listings, and I sent a majorly fluffed up e-mail to my employers-to-be.

I remember I told them I was a good student (true), a good driver (true), dependable (true) and a non-smoker (false). I don't know where that lie came from, except that non-smokers just seem more trustworthy.

I remember at my job interview, they said they really liked the fact that I straight-up told them I didn't smoke, since they were avid anti-tobacco people and their last nanny had ended up smoking in the car with the kids. Me, my lies and my cigs-1, honesty and tobacco-free lungs-0.

I felt guilty for about two seconds, but, hey, I would never smoke in the car with the kids. I might sneak in a cig during their naps, but I'm not that much of Britney Spears wannabe.

So, believe it or not, I actually did pretty well for a while. Those kids loved me. We made up games, I drove them to their lessons and classes on time and bought them drinks at the gas station when I had to stop for a Red Bull run.

But now that I'm pregnant, I'm having flashbacks of my time there. And it's not doing a lot for my mommy confidence.

The 7-year-old drove me crazy. Unlike the 2 and 4 year olds, she wasn't cuddly or cute. I'm 5'1, and have always been tiny (thank a lifetime of Crohn's for that), so she was my size. She was like a friend from school, only she made me watch High School Musical and forced me to feed her Oreo after Oreo even though I promised her mom I wouldn't.

And one of the rare times we did the cliched baby-sitter, baby-sitee game where I let them ride on my back while I nay-ed around their living room, she insisted she be on the saddle every time. My poor back couldn't take it, and sent her to her room so as to save my poor 5'1 self. She cried.

Another time, the 2 year old--normally my favorite of the three--pooped on the floor. She was still potty-training and wore a diaper, which I (thankfully) never had to change.

But this one day, I hear her enter the bathroom. I hear her giggle. I hear her leave the bathroom and close the door.

"Did you go?" I asked her.

"Yesssss," she replied, still with the inane giggling, and ran off.

And sure enough, she had, on the bathroom floor, about a foot away from her intended target.

I lost it. Up until this point, I literally didn't know this was ever a possibility--aside from the work of drunk frat boys and demented janitors.

"Seriously, do humans actually do this?" I yelled at her.

She cried.

"Pick it up!" I yelled again.

She cried, and ran into her room, locking the door.

So I picked it up. And then I swore off two-year-olds.

Yeah, I'm gonna be a great mom.

Read more...