If she's on a flight to Vegas tomorrow, it's not my fault

I babysat a four-year-old this weekend. She has life totally figured out.


Miss Independent (the four year old, not me, duh) : "I'm going to get married one day."

Me: "Oh, you are? When?"

Miss Independent: "I don't know, sometime before I'm too old."

Me: "Who are you going to marry?"

Miss Independent: "I don't know yet. I'm still trying to choose."

Me: "Oh really?"

Miss Independent: "Yeah. There's a lot to choose from you know?"

Me: "Really? Well, no rush. You have time to think about it. Those things take time to figure out."

Miss Independent: "Yeah, I know. I will have to decide. It will probably take me at least all weekend."

My Socks Also Match

I wake up in the morning, walk ten feet and run into a door. A door that's not usually closed. I stumble into the bathroom, step into the shower and something squeaks under my foot. There's nothing on the coffee table, the remote to the T.V. is no where to be found and there are smells that scream pureed coming from inside the refrigerator.

My house has been transformed. It's happened before, yes, with the toys and what can only be described as mountains of baby equipment everywhere. But he's mobile this time. He's everywhere, you can't stop him. And so you move everything out of his path. His path of destruction.

It's good for me, I think, mixing up my routine. It's teaching me you can to go bed without everything in it's place. It's teaching me that a shredded magazine is not the worst thing in the world. It's teaching me that whenever you have a child in your house that eats, it is best to also have a dog. She has never been happier, the dog. She's taken right to her post under the high chair like a fish to water. When I try to get her to move, so I can pick up my nephew and shake the crumbs off, the dog looks at me like I'm ripping her from the place she was meant to be. If she could talk, she'd say something like "please, don't make me move. Gazing up at the base of this highchair is the one thing in life I'm actually good at doing!"

It always amazes me how small changes have the power to completely redefine our priorities. I normally manage to leave the house in the morning awake, fed and even accessorized. I turn the music up, make some toaster waffles and head out the door proud that I have remembered to wear earrings and cute shoes. This morning, I left with wet hair, tripped over some sort of rolling, spinning, noise-making contraption and walked into Starbucks looking like I'd forgotten the ever important part of waking up that involves opening one's eyes. And this is not even the morning after a night of babysitting, this is just how good I am at having a change in routine.

The best part, though, is that I think I've realized a little bit of what gets a parent through. Last night, as my sister and nephew were leaving to spend an evening with friends, he reached out for me and said "aaagggguuuiieee." Translation: I don't want to leave my favorite Auntie, give me back to her now or I will scream. Sure, there's no way to prove this but spend two minutes with that baby's head on your shoulder and you'll know there's no way I could be wrong.

Runs in the family

My sister and nephew are here now. He's nearly eleven months old and in case there was doubt, has the personality to prove it. He may strongly resemble his father's side of the family in looks however, the personality seems to be veering sharply toward our side.

For instance, he's a talker. Other than "mamamamama" and "gigi" (when pointing at the doggie, of course) no one really knows what he's saying. But in the true style of our family, that is hardly a reason to stop talking. In fact, it's good reason to talk more. If at first you don't communicate, try, try again. And continue trying until no one will answers the phone when you call or returns your emails at which point it's clearly time to drop by unannounced. My nephew is well on his way to that step, as well.

He's been pulling himself up on furniture to stand for months and man is he speedy on all fours. (Seriously, turn your back for a second and all the toilet paper is off the roll even though you are still in the next room.) Now, though, he's standing. And trying to walk. If there's anything more remarkable than watching someone, for the first time, put one foot in front of the other I don't know what it is. Then, when he inevitably flops down on his rear, he gets up and tries again. Quite a reminder and a testament to the determination of humans, even if they have knee injuries. Who thought you could learn something from a baby?

I'm bound and determined that the kid will learn to walk while staying at my house for the next few weeks. To ensure this, I gave him the house rules: 1) We all walk here 2) There are very few reasons to scream in the middle of the night. So far, he's followed neither rule. We're working on it, though. After all, what more can I expect from someone who poured the dog's water on his head within two minutes of being in my house?

Your five o'clock will come someday, young man

I try to spend as much time as I can with my young, full-of-questions, cousins. I used to think I could teach them but mostly, they teach me.

The older of the two, now nearly ten, and I tend to want to "research" and "discover" whenever we're together. We go on little hikes and when we're hanging out at home, we spend a lot of time on The Discovery Channel website. We've watched everything from stunts to emergency animal rescue and read articles on bridge engineering, crocodile breeding and the history of diamonds. I'm not kidding, we are professionals when it comes to finding information on the Internet.

Boy of nearly ten, though, seems to know something about everything. He knows what makes a suspension bridge stay, well, suspended. He knows that some female reptiles eat their mate (or at least try, or something like that). He knows the history of the Hope Diamond. Meanwhile, I usually sit next to him, staring at the screen stunned that there's anything else even on the Internet beside blogs, Wikipedia and YouTube. What more do you really need? Really?

On our latest adventure, though, my lack of ten-year-old knowledge was redeemed. Well, almost. We were reading this article by Bill Nye (yes, "The Science Guy." Do you know any other Bill Nye? Okay then.) about tides. Throughout the article, Bill explains the reason for tides, the sun, the moon, gravity and all. (Sidebar: I enjoy Bill especially because although he is THE science guy, he doesn't get all crazy sciency all the time and talk over one's head. It's actually quite attractive and if Bill were say, younger, single and possibly living across the street from me, I might find some time to bring some cookies over. Super smart sciency non-cocky guy is the new hot, you know).

Anyway, in the middle of the article, Bill gets into explaining the way Earth rotates and how that causes tides, particularly high tides, to always be occurring somewhere. Here's what Bill says: "As the saying goes, it's five o'clock somewhere. Well, the ocean is bulging high-tide-wise somewhere all the time as well--and on opposite sides of Earth."

"Oh, that makes sense," I say to my cousin. He agrees but has a strange look on his face. "What?" I ask, still not sure what he doesn't get.

"I've never heard of that saying."

"What? 'It's five o'clock somewhere'?"

"Yeah. What does that mean?"

"It just means that somewhere on Earth, no matter what time it is in your time zone, it can be five o'clock somewhere else."

"I don't think that's true. Would the math add up? Are there enough time zones for that to be possible."

"Well, I really don't know. But that's not really the important part of that saying."

"So what's the important part?"

"Ask me again in ten years."

"Ugh, I hate when you say that! I won't remember in ten years to ask you what 'It's five o'clock somewhere' means."

"Oh yes you will, trust me."