babysitting (or Nate vs. the snotgoblin)

meg works hard. she has even taken up a side job writing study questions for kaplan test prep to make a bit of scratch. so she said the other day, "i want a massage" to which i replied "do you want me to set up an appointment?" but she is very humble and hates to spend money on herself (other than buying pets) so with some coersion i got her to agree to get one today. i also called her best friend joy and suggested she come up to join meg, and i offered to babysit her 14 month old.

now i am good with babies, and really good with "kids", but what the heck do you do with a toddler? can they walk, like really walk, without help? how to feed this little monstrosity? the ability to string two letters together is not the ability to communicate (unless of course you are the creature's mother) what is the time limit on a diaper?

so joy and mikky showed up, then the girls left and it was mikky and me. apparently she can walk pretty good on even ground (which will come up again later). since i think strollers are collossal pains i opted to carry and walk with her. and where better to do this than the santa ana zoo. it was a lot of fun. mikky fell down twice while walking, the first time it happened i sat down in the middle of the pavement and pulled out the diaper bag and had mikky sitting on my lap. as soon as the bag was beside us she was pointing to the small external pocket where her pacifier spends its vacation time. popped it in, and all was good. next time i would be prepared.

the trick i learned was to carry her when we were between exhibits and let her run loose when we stopped. cause a toddler does not understand the flow of traffic in a public place. she was fascinated by waterfalls and birds, (which was nice to have shared interests), and i was fascinated by her. we got to pet the goats. and i helped her use the slide. it was a good time. then i took her home and eventually to the block in orange to meet up with mommy. very nice time, toddlers are far more interesting than babies-so there's hope all you baby owners out there.

but within a half hour of returning the little snotgoblin to her mother, i was beat. i took a two hour nap, just layed down and passed out. all the picking up and carrying, and putting down, and diaper bag, and left arm, right arm. thats a lot of work. newfound respect for the parents of small children. its more than just sleep deprivation.