B-A-B-Y-S-I-T-T-I-N-G

In my last post (which you probably haven't read yet, so get moving!) I mentioned that I had my first real non-Fairwood babysitting job. Who was the lucky kid? Um, the third cousin of a town friend who helped get Uncle Sterling elected as a selectman. Or at least, the lady told me that the girl (yes, I babysat a six-year-old girl) was her third cousin, but she also told me that the girl's mother was her second cousin. Automatically I was tempted to protest ("Hey, that's not how it works!"), I who have to keep such things straight like so many of my readers, who are privileged to keep track of their fourth cousins or second cousins once removed, and so forth. But wisely, I refrained. I didn't need to point out the dear lady's ignorance.

 

Anyway, with very minor tremors of trepidation I set forth, and drove myself to the site of my first real babysitting job. Actually, most of you have probably been by the house many times, so I'll tell you that it's right next to Carr's store, and if you know where that is, great, if not, oh well. I'm not about to hand out other people's addresses. Well, if I was nervous, I shouldn't have been. To tell the truth, the whole thing was disgustingly easy. Basically I spent the whole time watching The Santa Claus with the girl, and then her mother came by after an hour and a half or so and picked her up. Then it was over. And people get paid for doing this?

 

But the girl herself was a character. Right away I could tell she was going to be interesting. A dark eyed, slightly Hispanic-looking girl waved at me from the window, and as soon as she had opened the door and had gotten my name straight, she began  jumping up and down asking me to guess how to spell her name. It was Jessica, and my mind flipped through the spelling, trying to figure out what was so tricky about it. Obviously there was some deviation from the normal, but I decided to play along, and spelled it just the way she was hoping I would.

 

"Nope, it's J-E-S-I-C-A. There's only one S. You see my mother's name is Melisa, and hers is spelled with only one S too. Her mother was a Spanish teacher. That's how it all got started!"

       

The girl's third cousin's husband, or whatever relation he was to her, proceeded to give me directions and began to recall an interesting history of the house, which used to be a school house,  and the work they'd done to it. In the meantime she kept jumping up and down, trying to catch my attention.

 

"Oh, oh, I know how to spell your age!" was the next thing she told me. "It's S-I-X-T-E-E-N!"

 

"Very impressive," I told her (or words to that effect). "And you're six, right?"

 

"Y-E-S."

 

Later, when we were alone, she started bouncing up and down on the couch saying my name over and over again, as if she were a chearleader trying to get on my nerves. Once out of breath, she told me, "You're nice. Nice like mice."

 

I wasn't sure this was a compliment, but since she seemed to think so, I decided to take it as one.

 

She asked me if I had ever had snow icecream. I hadn't, so she asked me if I wanted to see some. Taking me to the freezer, she pointed it out to me and then told me she was allowed to eat a little, so could I give her some? I wasn't sure whether or not to believe her, but I decided to take her word for it, and a little while later she was licking her fingers as we watched The Santa Claus.

 

"Mmm, I'm eating the blood on my fingers," she informed me.

 

"You're gross," I told her.

 

"Have you ever had it? It's good! It tastes like a dark chocolate and white chocolate mix!" Then she told me that she was painting the couch with her blood. Perhaps I should have been more alarmed, but she was just the sort of girl who would have told me that just to get a reaction out of me, and since she didn't want a bandaid and so far I hadn't seen a drop of blood about her, I decided not to be too concerned, beyond telling her to stop.

 

Her mother came soon, and then I locked up the house drove home. And thus ends my little babysitting story.