Amy hosted a jewelry party last week; Mallory and Phoebe came along with me and were pleased to find another three-year-old girl, Lydia, there as well. We sent them upstairs to play and asked Mallory to keep an eye on the younger two. Throughout the evening, she provided us with these dispatches:
We were all very careful not to laugh until she was out of earshot. She was so earnest. She did a fine job, for her first time babysitting.
I didn't babysit much in high school, and hated it the few times I did, but in my last two years of college I was Babysitter Extraordinaire, the favorite child care provider for a handful of professors in the Fine Arts department. Those professors -- and they were almost all two-professor families -- gave me my first insight into what is now called "Attachment Parenting": they were breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, co-sleeping, whole-grain-eating, PBS-only-watching families. (So are we, might I add, except for the whole grains and the PBS. And the other three don't apply much anymore.) I loved all those kids -- Stephanie and Ross, Anna and Austin, curly-haired Sam, Adrien and James, Emily and Matthew -- and it's almost impossible to believe that they are all now in high school, that they're not the same cute kids I left behind in San Antonio in 1994. Emily and Matt were by far my favorites. Emily was four and had perfect pitch. She'd never even had music lessons, but I could hit a key on the piano and she'd shout, "G!" or "B flat!" and she was always right. Matt was two, and had the chubbiest cheeks and the sweetest smile. He got his consonants all mixed up; one day when I fed him lunch he said, "Frista, I'm just frazy about komatoes!" This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but one day when I was really bored, I googled them. Emily is apparently a very accomplished viola player and poet; Matt is a champion squash (or raquetball?) player. I'm proud of them, my first kids. I wonder if they remember me.
I'm working very hard and not having any fun myself. The important thing is that Phoebe and Lydia have fun.
These girls are playing so nicely together.
This babysitting is wearing me out.
These girls are so cute, I could just cry for happiness.
Lydia is perfect. Phoebe is a handful.
We were all very careful not to laugh until she was out of earshot. She was so earnest. She did a fine job, for her first time babysitting.
I didn't babysit much in high school, and hated it the few times I did, but in my last two years of college I was Babysitter Extraordinaire, the favorite child care provider for a handful of professors in the Fine Arts department. Those professors -- and they were almost all two-professor families -- gave me my first insight into what is now called "Attachment Parenting": they were breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, co-sleeping, whole-grain-eating, PBS-only-watching families. (So are we, might I add, except for the whole grains and the PBS. And the other three don't apply much anymore.) I loved all those kids -- Stephanie and Ross, Anna and Austin, curly-haired Sam, Adrien and James, Emily and Matthew -- and it's almost impossible to believe that they are all now in high school, that they're not the same cute kids I left behind in San Antonio in 1994. Emily and Matt were by far my favorites. Emily was four and had perfect pitch. She'd never even had music lessons, but I could hit a key on the piano and she'd shout, "G!" or "B flat!" and she was always right. Matt was two, and had the chubbiest cheeks and the sweetest smile. He got his consonants all mixed up; one day when I fed him lunch he said, "Frista, I'm just frazy about komatoes!" This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but one day when I was really bored, I googled them. Emily is apparently a very accomplished viola player and poet; Matt is a champion squash (or raquetball?) player. I'm proud of them, my first kids. I wonder if they remember me.
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