Are You Smarter than a 3-year-old?

Now, your first instinctual answer to this question might be “Of course, my brain is much more developed, and my vocabulary is bigger, and I can do math. Case closed.”  But let’s think about this a little more.  It depends on how we are defining intelligence here.  If we are talking about the academic sort of knowledge, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue and what the square root of 49 is, then sure, the fact that you are able to read these printed words probably indicates that you are smarter than a three-year-old.  If we are talking about social knowledge, having awareness of norms and mores, then the understanding that eating anything that formerly resided in your nose is a bad idea probably sets you ahead of most of the preschool set.  But neither of those is exactly what I want to address here.  The closest I can label it is street smarts.  Could you, in a battle of wits, outsmart a toddler?  I recently had the chance to find this out for myself.

Molly, the three-year-old that I nanny, is quite the homebody.  Despite all the funtivities that I come up with, she never wants to leave the house.  Her mother has said that I should just force her to leave, and once we’re out she’ll be fine.  This has proven true, generally.  So last Friday, I decided we would go to the park in the morning.  When I asked Molly if she would like to go to the park, she wailed “Noooo,” in a whine bordering on tantrum territory.  Sensing danger, I tried to wheedle her with my best tactics.  ”Kate really wants to go, we shouldn’t disappoint her,” I said, using the baby as a pawn in my schemes.  This did not move Molly.

Then I had a stroke of brilliance. Evil genius, really.

“Hey, I have an idea!” I exclaimed.  Then I paused.  ”Actually, I probably shouldn’t tell you. You won’t like it.”

I told you. Evil.

“What? No, I’ll like it, I promise,” Molly insisted. “Are you sure?” I said with my best faux hesitation, laughing maniacally in my head at my amazing powers of manipulation.  ”Yes, I really want to know!” Molly pressed.  ”Well, I’m thinking… you could wear your fairy wings to the park and we can pretend to be fairies!” I exclaimed.  ”Yeah!” Molly said excitedly.  I smiled inwardly at my victory. I was Smart.

I got Molly’s dress-up box off the shelf, and we pulled out her three pairs of fairy wings.  ”So which ones do you want to wear?” I asked, still patting myself on the mental back.  ”Um, these ones…” Molly selected a pair exploding with tulle.  ”Excellent,” I said, turning to put them aside.  ”…And you can wear these ones!” Molly finished with a smile.

My glee diminished. My plan had backfired. I was Dumb.

“Um, what? I don’t need wings, I have a big imagination,” I insisted.  ”No, you will wear these ones, and Kate can wear these ones,” Molly decreed.  There was no arguing with her.  The battle was lost.

Five minutes later, there we were walking down the street, surely the strangest little parade the neighborhood had seen in a while, looking like a scene straight out of a Wes Anderson film.  Molly led the way in tulle and gold glitter wings.  Kate sat in her stroller, pink gauze wings propped behind her, and I pushed her, wearing purple and pink butterfly-esque wings.  I looked neither left nor right, but I could see cars actually stop as they passed us out of my peripheral vision.  We got to the park as quick as I could urge Molly to walk (sorry, fly, obviously).  Luckily there was no one at the park when we arrived, so we could flap about in peace.  We gathered plants for the “Fairy Contest,” whose rules, goals and purpose I am still pretty unclear on, and climbed on the playground.  Then the time came for the Contest, which involved Molly ordering us to run as fast as we could from one point in the field to another.  And as I zig-zagged across the meadow, wearing fairy wings and clutching a very confused baby Kate to my chest, all that played in my head over and over was “I have a college degree. I have a college degree. What am I doing?! I have a college degree!”

Then came a moment that makes me think three-year-olds are smarter than we give them credit for.  As we ran back towards the playground, Molly called to me “Ok, now we both need to stop what we’re doing, and look at each other.”  We both stopped running, and she looked up at me for about five seconds, and smiled. Then she took off again.  And as I watched her prance away, wings bobbing and hair flying, I thought, we should probably all stop what we’re doing and look at each other a more often.  We might appreciate people a little bit more.  I certainly flew back into fairy time with a sense that it was about more than being a fairy, and maybe more important than anything I’ll do in an office.  Certainly more fun, in any case.

Welcome to the Freak Show

They say that college and the years after graduation are a time of growth, discovering who you really are.  Well, I’ve been discovering who I am, and let me tell you, some of these discoveries are not so welcome.  Turns out, who I am is a freak.  Things that I thought were totally normal… not so much.

One night during my sophomore year, some girlfriends and I were together studying.  And by studying, I mean holding textbooks open on our laps while we watched a chick flick and ate junk food, apparently absorbing information by osmosis.  One particular weakness our group has is sour patch kids.  I’m not that into them personally, but Liz and Anne could eat them all the live-long day, so there was a big bag to accompany this riveting study session.  As we munched away, I at one point commented “Man, my eyelids are getting sweaty.”

Silence.

“What?” Liz finally asked.  ”My eyelids,” I said again. “They’re sweating. Because of the candy… because it’s sour… what?” Three appalled faces stared back at me.  I started to become concerned. “Does this not happen to anyone else?!”

“No!” Adrienne exclaimed.  The other two shook their heads.  ”What do you mean, your eyelids get sweaty?” Anne asked suspiciously.  ”When I eat sour things, like orange juice or candy, my eyelids sweat, mostly the lower ones…” They all examined my face, which was now burning with the shame that comes from being a part of the freak show.  ”I thought it was normal!”

You will soon see that this is a theme in my life.

The summer after sophomore year, I went on a trip to Ukraine to help run a summer camp at an orphanage.  As we stood in a circle one morning praying, all staring at the ground (because as we all know, God only listens when you look at the dirt), my teammate Jess suddenly gasped. “Lindsey, what is wrong with your feet?!”  I looked down, as did everyone else, to see this:

I know, it's like something out of the exorcist, right?

“What?” I said, looking up, only to be greeted with horrified expressions all around.  ”Why are you standing like that?!” our team leader Jenna asked. “Doesn’t it hurt?!” Jess exclaimed.  ”Well, no, I just stand like that sometimes… can you guys not do that?”  Yet again, I was met with slow head shakes, and expressions that indicated I was now considered part robot, alien, or both.  Dangit.

I’ve learned to hide the rolling ankles, but sometimes I can’t control it.  I’ll be walking along like normal when suddenly one ankle will cave inward.  This doesn’t pose much of a problem when I’m in flats, but put me in high heels, and those three inches combined with my utter lack of coordination in general results in me occasionally plummeting to the sidewalk for no apparent reason.  I get a lot of concerned looks from strangers.

So I decided that maybe I should strengthen my ankles to help with this problem.  One of my roommates was a kinesiology major and now works as a physical therapist, and another is studying to be an occupational therapist, so I thought “Perfect! Maybe they’ll have some exercises I can do.”  When I got home from work Kristina was sitting on the floor talking with some friends, and I asked if she knew of anything.  Since we had moved in not long ago she hadn’t yet seen my Gumby-like legs, so I demonstrated for her.  ”That’s so interesting!” she exclaimed, fascinated by my elastigirl quality.  ”I’m not sure how you could work on that. I mean, you’ve got this extra bump here…”

I’m sorry, what?

“Here, on the inside of your foot.  This bone here.” She pointed.  ”Other people don’t have that bump?!” I asked in alarm.  ”No, most people only have two, see?” She showed me her own ankle.  ”WHAT?!” I cried.  ”Does everyone only have two?!” The others hiked up their pant legs to show me their normal, two boned ankles.  While others had been disgusted by my freakish qualities before, I had never felt so shocked by it.  What was the extra bump?  An additional bone?  A tumor?  A twin I had absorbed in the womb?  One friend suggested that since I sometimes stand on the inside of my ankles that my body was trying to form another heel there. This did not make me feel better. We pulled out Kristina’s textbooks to try and figure out what it was without much luck.  Here you can see a diagram of the bones in a foot, and a picture of my foot.

Normal ankle. See the one bump?

 

 

My own ankle, labeled as best as I can guess

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at the diagram, it seems like it could be the Talus, just much bigger than everyone else’s, but I’m not convinced.  The picture doesn’t even do justice to my ankle, it’s a pretty significant bump, on both ankles.  So there you have it.  Freak status, officially confirmed by college textbooks.  But on the plus side, I’ve decided to make some extra income by charging money to watch me walk on the inside of my ankles while I drink orange juice and my eyelids sweat.

Aging Grace-lessly

I know I’m getting older.  I have accepted it.  When the kids I babysit ask if I’m a teenager, I say no without any sense of regret.  When they then ask if I’m a “grown-up,” I grudgingly admit “Technically, yes.  That’s what they tell me anyways.”  But I did not realize just how much my body was truly disintegrating until I went to that land that smells of sunscreen, awkward teenage opposite-sex interaction, and more pee than you care to consider. That’s right: the water park.

I’d been hankering to go to a water park since last summer, so when Liz suggested this summer that I come visit her in San Diego and we could go to Knott’s, I jumped at the chance.  I love water parks. They have all the fun and rush of roller coasters, but none of the brain jarring shaking, plus you stay cool and get a nice tan. You can’t lose!  Liz and I prepped with all the necessary fixings and headed out for what was sure to be an awesome day. And it was… for the most part.  We tried all the different colored body tube slides that land in the same pool, went several rounds on the funnel slide, looped through the lazy river and splashed around the wave pool.  Then we had a lunch of some delicious, fatty amusement park chicken strips and fries, finished with ice cream.  We then noticed that the line for the raft ride that begins at the top of the tallest tower in the park had a really short line.  We knew, this was our shot to get up there.

We began to make our way over to the tower, and I had my eyes on the prize. This was going to be so great, I smiled to myself. Then something disturbed me from my daydream of swirling down the slide.  Something high-pitched and shrill stabbed into my brain via my ear, like a thousand mice on crack.  I turned to the right, and I saw them.  A whole gaggle of junior-high aged girls, angling up another path that converged with ours at the base of the stairs up to the slide. There must have been 15 of them, all with approximately 3% body fat or less. I turned to Liz, who was wide-eyed with fear.  ”Run!” I hissed.  ”We can’t let them get ahead of us!”

We began to move as quickly as we could, but we were hindered in our efforts by the fact that some brilliant head honcho at Knott’s decided it was a good idea, in a park centered around massive amounts of water, to make all the paths out of the slickest, smoothest cement known to man.  There was also no railing on this portion of path, which left Liz and I to perform that soccer-mom-esque power walk that involves locking your elbows at a 90 degree angle and swinging your hips dramatically side-to-side to give yourself momentum without relying on any traction from the ground.  I kept glancing to the right to check on the gang of skipper dolls, and determined that we were going to beat them to the tower, but only barely.  We reached the stairs, and, clutching at the railings, flung ourselves up the steps.

By flight 3, I was feeling the burn in my thighs. Bad. “Whew! I’m feeling it!” I gasped at Liz. “Don’t stop!” She huffed. “They’ll catch up to us!”  I glanced below and winced. “And if they do they might try and eat us, since their metabolism clearly requires them to eat every five minutes,” I wheezed. “Hurry!”

As I rounded the corner on flight 5, the last of the oxygen left my body.  But we could hear them approaching below us, like the lollipop guild had turned into a lynch mob, and they were coming after us. So we gathered our strength and heaved our bodies, the size of three of the Hannah Montana clones, up towards our goal.

On flight 7 I clutched at Liz’s arm. “Chest pains!” I gasped. “Help me!”  ”We’re so close!” She cried, “We can make it!”  I glanced up, seeing the red flash of the lifeguard’s suit as I heard the tinkle of approaching charm bracelets, and strains of a Jonas Brothers’ tune. The fact they had the ability to sing when I was struggling to maintain consciousness did not boost my confidence. But I used the last surge of adrenaline to reach the top.

“Two!” I exhaled with some remaining air, perhaps emitted by my deflating cardiovascular system.  The lifeguard looked at us with some alarm as we leaned on the rails.  I didn’t care. We had won. And as we stepped into our raft, I smiled, either from a sense of pride or because I was having a stroke. I may be old and decrepit, but I had enough lung power to hum the first bars of the Rocky theme, and the victory was only slightly dampened when one of the girls wrinkled her nose and asked her friend “Is that a Selena Gomez song?” to which her friend replied, “No, it sounds like an oldie. You know, like N’Sync?”  It’s alright though. I had the last laugh. At the bottom of the slide, as Liz and I slogged our way out of the pool while they came down the slide screaming at an octave not often heard outside of classical opera, I may have peed in the water they were about to land in. But it’s not my fault. I can’t help it. I’m old.

Pride comes before a Fall

So, I have a new nanny job.  For many reasons, watching Sam was just not working out well (aside, even, from the puking and almost tipping him out of the stroller).  So when the mother of James (8), Molly (3) and Kate (10 months) lost her nanny, I jumped at the chance to switch to a schedule that gave me better hours at my other jobs, and generally made my life less hectic.  Baby Kate and I, you may recall, have a particularly close history. We’re practically blood sisters. But pee-incident aside, they are great kids, and it has been a marvelous first week.

It has been particularly good for my self-esteem.  The very first day I was watching them, while Molly held onto my leg for balance while peeing on a “big-girl” toilet, announced “I love you.”  My heart just melted.  She proceeded to remind me throughout the day, while coloring, or reading a story, or ripping a doll brush through my hair.  The effect was diminished somewhat at the park the next day, when sitting on the bench eating a snack she told me “I love you very much,” and in the same breath told me that she loved the birds.  Keep in mind that these were not cute little sparrows, these were filthy park pigeons and seagulls, rats with wings.  I told her I loved her too, but just felt neutral towards the birds.  Molly is also very generous with the compliments, telling me frequently that I have beautiful make-up, or that she likes my bra.

On Friday the day began with a tantrum of epic proportions, which Molly’s mom instructed her to scream out in her room.  The day went well from there, however, and when she woke up from a nap we looked for a game to play while baby Kate was still asleep.  Molly selected a box of wooden blocks used to make a set of ramps for marbles to run down.  We began building, and it became quickly apparent that I was way more into this building process than Molly.  Don’t get me wrong, she was enjoying herself, but I, I was on a mission.  We were going to build the greatest marble ramp contraption the world had ever known.  Molly is not quite at the phase where she understands the physics of marble ramps, and couldn’t grasp that the ramps must touch, at the same level, for the marble to continue its journey.  I would make gentle suggestions as to where to put blocks, and even let her try her ideas, chuckling in my head as they didn’t work.

I heard baby Kate stirring, so I went and brought her into the room.  Kate is now crawling, scooting around at ferocious speeds with such force that she is callousing the tops of her feet.  This mobility gives her a whole new level of access to things to touch and attempt to eat, which was really great for this activity, since nothing says “Put me in your mouth and choke on me” like a shiny, throat-sized ball of colored glass.  We kept building while I kept one eye on Kate, and construction continued without incident.

Soon I, er, we had built quite the creation, if I do say so myself.  We incorporated a zig-zag ramp, a hanging bell rung by the passing marble, and a death-defying drop through thin air.  It was impressive. I am an engineering genius, I thought, and smiled with self-satisfaction.  Oh, and Molly didn’t ruin it, I guess.  ”Isn’t it amazing?!” I asked Molly.  She agreed whole-heartedly.  I suggested we leave it up so that we could show mom and dad what a great thing I, I mean we, had made.  She thought this sounded like a good plan.

Five minutes later as I gazed at my own personal Taj Mahal, Molly announced “Let’s knock it down!”  ”What? No! It’s mine! I mean, don’t you want to show mom and and so they can be so proud of you?”  I urged.  Molly was not convinced that this would be more fun than destroying my architectural masterpiece.  ”Well, you can knock it down if you want, but I think mom and dad would just like it so much if they got the chance to see it. It’s up to you…” I wheedled as I gazed into her big blue eyes. She smiled.

It’s funny how the sound of wooden blocks crashing into each other sounds exactly like my heart shattering into a million pieces.

I swear I do more than play with babies

But it just so happens that babies often lead to the most ridiculous moments in day.

You remember Sam, Sir Pukes-a-lot of the earlier story?  Well, I decided that a great use of our time together would be to put him in the stroller and jog a winding route to the park.  It takes up time, he’s out of the house and I get exercise. Everybody wins.

Well, I put him in the stroller this week, and it’s not a jogging stroller, but I think, it’s not like I’m going to be doing anything intense here.  I am slow, and we’re just going along the sidewalk. There’s barely any slope to it.  So I start plodding along, and it’s not too hard.  The stroller goes straight, and isn’t too difficult to push.  No problem, I think triumphantly, and pick up the pace a little bit.  We loop around a roundabout, and head down a quiet residential street.  We approach an intersection, and I slow down as I look both ways, then roll down the little sidewalk drive onto the street.  As we reach the other side, I aim the stroller up the little sidewalk ramp. However, I didn’t notice that this one wasn’t quite level with the street.  When we walked pushing the stroller, these tiny sorts of bumps were not an issue, so I assumed that running would be the same case.

Wrong. We hit the bump.  The stroller stops moving. I do not. I crash into the back of the stroller.  The front wheels are stuck on the bump, but the back end tips up with the momentum.  I stagger around, legs entangled in the stroller, trying to right it without tipping the baby out. I manage to use my body to support it and pull it upright.  Sam is not pleased. He is glaring at me, and I do not blame him. I make sure he’s ok, then I continue along our route.

You might think I would be smart enough to avoid bumps or slow down after that. You would be wrong. The same thing happens five minutes later.  After that I do slow to a walk with any change in elevation, but the damage has already been done, to my dignity and my legs. This emerges a few days later, and that combined with a smattering of bruises along each shin is enough to teach me that I am not made to be a suburban mom.  Sam was sufficiently traumatized by the whole incident.

Not all strollers are created equal

But he would have his revenge.

When we got home, we ate a snack, and I soon realized he needed a diaper change.  I grabbed a fresh diaper, and discovered that the bag of wipes had been left open and were all dried out.  I remoistened two at the faucet, and then went to work. I took off the old diaper and set it to the side, and wiped him up, placing the used wipes on top of the old diaper.  Then I made a crucial mistake.  I went to get the new diaper before folding up the old one, and sure enough, Sam chose that moment to pull one foot out of my hand and bring his leg down, placing the foot right in the poo. Yup. I immediately grabbed it, but it was too late. We stared at each other a moment as we both comprehended what happened. I looked around, but there was nothing but old diaper, used wipes, and new diaper. I looked across the room, where the bag of wipes sat, ten feet away. Stupid Lindsey. Stupid.  I looked back down at Sam and said “Crap.” Then, I swear to God, he rolled his eyes at me. The baby was sassing me. I pointed out that he was the one with poo on his foot, so as far as stupid moves goes this was sort of a pot calling the kettle black situation.

I thought, ok, I am a college graduate. Surely I can come up with a creative solution, so I brainstormed all possible options.  If I let go of the foot, he would surely put it down on the couch. Bad situation.  If I carried him over normally, the foot would touch me. Very bad situation. The obvious solution was to carry him over by the foot, but that didn’t seem quite right either. I finally folded up the old diaper, and gingerly propped his foot on top and told him not to move it. Miraculously, as I sprinted across the room, grabbed wipes, wet them in the faucet and raced back, he held still, and the situation was resolved. Lesson learned: babies are evil, and will take revenge on you if given the chance. Always be prepared.

Why I don’t have a baby Pt. 2

Newsflash: I spend a lot of time with children these days. One of my four jobs involves babysitting a one and a half year old three days a week, for about five hours a day.  As I’ve said before, I love kids. Babysitting is actually really fun for me; it’s something I look forward to.  Which is why I found it so strange that I don’t like this kid that much. He’s really cute, pretty mellow, but he’s just… dull.  I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. When a baby is younger, like less than a year, you can pretty much tote them around and do what you want (maybe not as a mom, but as a babysitter).  Older, like 3 and up, they’re fun because they can actually do things, play games, make unidentifiable art, etc. However, in between these ages is the worst, because they’re not old enough to actually do anything, other than maybe throw a ball, or in this case little Sam’s favorite game is turning the light switch on, running away until I grab him and throw him on the couch. I turn the light switch off. Repeat 200 times.  On the other hand, if you try to take them somewhere, they are old enough that they want to get out of the stroller and wreak havoc. For instance, I took Sam to Borders, thinking I could occupy him with a picture book while I read about the GREs. Au contraire. He insisted, in no uncertain terms, on getting out of the stroller, and taking every single book off the shelves, then re-shelving it in a different spot. Needless to say, the employees were not thrilled at our presence. 

However, Sam and I have worked out a routine that has made our time more enjoyable.  I arrive around 10:15, and we spend 15-20 minutes playing ball on the porch. Then we go inside and watch “Ni-hao Kai-lan,” the Chinese version of Dora the Explorer.  So far I know ni-hao (hello), ting (listen), homme-sua (red), and reu-sua (green). At the rate of one word an episode, I will be fluent in twenty years. After that, we go on an outing, often the park. We come back, he naps, and if he wakes up before the parents get home I give him a snack and we watch more cartoons. It’s good times. Or at least easy, slightly mind-numbing times.

This week, when I arrived the first day, his mom explained that he had a runny nose. He coughed sporadically throughout the day, but otherwise seemed ok. The next day she mentioned that she had noticed a cough, but he still didn’t have a fever. She said to call her if he seemed worse, and I foolishly thought “Oh, I wont have to call her unless he throws up or something.” And that, kids, is what we call foreshadowing. 

Post nap, Sam expressed desire for some “num nums,” so I got a bowl with some watermelon, and since he was still in a post-nap sluggish state, I spoon fed it to him while he watched tv. After about 10 bites, he sat up, and got a glazed look in his eyes. It was a look that my gut told me foretold projectile, so I leapt up to look for a plastic bag. Seeing none, I realized that I should just carry him to the bathroom. I turned back to him, and at that moment, he began puking. And I, instead of leaping into action like the super-babysitter I claim to be, ran away. I ran away from the puking baby because I did not want to get puked on.  Instantly horrified at my selfishness, I turned back, and taking advantage of the pause, dashed to the bathroom holding Sam like he was a bomb about to go off. Which, to be fair, was not far from the truth. I set him down on the bathroom floor to take off his clothes that were now, you know, gross, and he immediately threw up again. So that makes once on the couch, once on the bathmat, zero in the toilet. Awesome. I manage to rinse him off in the shower (which he did not appreciate as much as I would have if I had vomit in my hair), wrap him in a blanket, and call his mother to come home. But until she arrived I let him sit on my lap, mostly because I was wracked with guilt at my earlier cowardice. Plus, I’ll admit, he is a cute little guy. When he’s not puking.

Why I don’t have a baby

I love babies. Really.  Love their drooly, toothless smiles, their soft baby hair, and especially their chubby calves.  Really, their legs are like little sausages.  But this past week, I remembered why I don’t have a baby (and sometimes don’t ever want one…)

My old boss called to see if I could babysit.  I had watched her two older kids before, and they are wonderful kids.  Some of my favorites. So of course, I said yes.  I arrived, and the mom was not there, but the dad was finishing getting ready.  It was then that he told me that the new baby had not stayed with anyone except the regular nanny because she freaked out on other sitters and had to go with the parents.  However, since they were on their way to a nice dinner, they felt it would be a faux pas to bring a baby, so they wanted to try leaving her.  She cried a little during the hand off, but seemed to calm down.  Dad suggested taking a walk before dinner, so we decided to go to the park.  7 year old James rode his scooter, 3 year old Molly rode her trike, and I put baby Kate in the stroller.  We walk to the park, which is about a 2 blocks away along neighborhood streets, then down a steep dirt hill.  There’s a cute little playground, and the kids immediately start climbing like monkeys.

Approximately three minutes after we arrived, I hear Molly calling for me as I adjust baby in stroller. I turn around, and she points out that her toe is bleeding. A lot. As she looks at it she starts to do the nervous whimper, but I confidently say “no problem, we’ll go home and clean it and put a band-aid on.”  Since I’m not freaking out, Molly decides she’s ok and wants to stay and play. But as she steps up the stairs, the actual pain sets in, and she begins to wail.  There is no consoling her this time; she is screaming.  I try all my tactics, the deep breaths, eye contact, reassuring words, nothing is working.  

I realize Molly is in no way going to ride her trike back.  I pull Baby Kate out of the stroller and put Molly in. I plan on just leaving the trike to get later, but James is heartily offended at this, so I ask if he can pull it and his scooter along behind him, and he agrees.  He starts to take them up the hil, and I turn the stroller around to begin the march up. Now, going down this hill was no problem. Going up is a different story. It would be no trouble for, say, a mountain goat, or Navy SEAL. I am, in fact, neither. I am further hindered by the stroller, which is a lot heavier with a large toddler. In addition, I have only one hand with which to push, as the other is holding baby Kate. Kate’s about six-months old, which, if you know babies, you know is old enough to hold your head up, and not much else. They are very floppy. So I heave into the stroller, trying to keep baby Kate from flopping right out of my one arm.  The stroller hits every rock and shrub in the path on the way up, and twice stops completely for no apparent reason. I try to talk to Molly as we go to distract her from looking at the injured toe, asking any question I can think of. She is mildly distracted, but the effort of talking puts me further out of breath, and, my guess is, does not help with the profuse sweating I am experiencing. Buckets.

Eventually we get to the top and the street, which I reason will be easier. Oh, foolish one. Pushing the stroller with one hand results in it going straight along the sidewalk approximately 2% of the time.  The rest of the time it veered either to the left, where it rolled off the curb, or to the right, where it clunked into a wall/fence/bush.  Molly did not appreciate any of these.  I continued talking to Molly, and James soon hit a goldmine as we talk about Halloween costumes, and he tells her to make her monster noise.  An inhuman growl, louder and more terrifying than should come out of any blonde, blue-eyed doll, erupts from Molly, causing both James and I to laugh.  Well of course, this only encourages Molly, and she proceeds to constantly growl the rest of the way home. This is great, as she has completely forgotten about the toe. Great, that is, until we reach one house where a group of six adults are sitting around a table in the front yard, enjoying a nice, quiet dinner in the summer evening. Enter Sweaty Lindsey, Demon Child, Floppy Baby, and James.  The ten yards in front of this house take about ten minutes to cross, as the stroller veers back and forth and generally refuses to do anything helpful, and Molly continuously growls like Satan.  Halfway through, as they stare at the sweaty, frazzled girl struggling across their sidewalk, I give them the smile and “Don’t mind me, ruining your magical evening” nod. One offers me a drink to finish the walk. I breezily (and by breezily, I mean gasping for air) say “No no, I’ve got it under control.” Clearly, I have not.

Twenty years later, we have made it past this house.  My hair is, at this point, forming its own separate entity, the frizz is so bad. At the next house there is an older man in his garage, and he has a good laugh as we make our way across his driveway, and halfway across, as I nearly slip in a puddle of my own sweat, he asks if I need help. Again, I assure him I am fully capable. As we get to the corner he and his wife come out of their house with their own child on bike, and the woman insists on helping, which I accept. I am able to take the trike from James, and we get past the last two houses to ours. I am, at this point, a hundred years old.  The woman takes baby Kate so that I can get Molly out of the stroller (who, by the way, is perfectly fine and chit chatting with the “nice lady”). Kate begins to cry, so I take her back as soon as I have Molly out.  The woman comments that she’s very attached, and I reply “Yeah, but I’m surprised she’s not crying with me, I’m not even the usual sitter.” At this, “nice lady” says “Oh, you’re just a sitter? You’re not the mother?” …No. No, I do not have three children, the first of which would’ve popped out when I was 15, but thanks, I’m glad I look haggard and sweaty enough to be the mother of three. Fantastic, really. 

We go into the house, and I manage to feed the kids chicken nuggets and cheerios (all prepared one handed, as Kate starts to shriek every time I put her down).  James gets in the shower, and I decide that since Kate is a little fussy, she might need her diaper changed. With Molly looking on, I lay Kate down on the changing table. The most horrible noise I have ever heard erupts, comparable to a legion of demons descending to bring apocalypse upon the world. Or something like that. It is coming out of Kate. She is not happy about the changing table, so I decide to just move as quickly as possible. I wrench open the onesie and pull off the diaper (luckily this was just a “number one” situation). However, once I have the diaper off Kate begins to flail, and pulls out of my grasp to roll over like some sort of ninja baby. I pin her with one hand, and pick her up to hold while I fold and dispose of the one diaper, and lay out a clean one. Anyone who has ever changed a baby knows that at this point, as I hold a naked-from-the-waist-down Kate on my hip, she will of course pee. And she does. A lot. All over me, and the carpet. At this point James remerges from the shower, and Molly announces “Kate peed.” James is disgusted. I tell him at least he is not wearing it. I continue with the changing, and do not even attempt to put on her pajamas as she is still screaming, and a quick cost-benefit analysis tells me she can stay in the same onesie.  

After this, I get James to bed, shower Molly one-handed (even handling a shampoo in the eyes incident), put a cried-out baby Kate to bed, watch ten-minutes of cartoons with Molly and put her to bed as well.  I spend ten minutes picking cheerios up off the floor before the parents arrive home, and ask how it went. Ha. 

Moral of the story: Don’t have babies. The end.

The Power of Saving

Hi. I’m Lindsey, and I’m a shopaholic.

It started in junior high, when I first began to buy my own clothes.  There was so much power in choosing.  It’s an awkward stage, so when you find something that makes you feel pretty, that gets someone to compliment you, it feels nice.  In high school, shopping was an activity unto itself.  I would just go shopping to pass the time, which now seems absurd.  Sophomore year of college, I put myself on a semester-long shopping hiatus. No buying anything, other than food and toiletries. No clothes, no shoes, no makeup. Zilch.  And that cured me of much of my urge to “go shopping.”  

But the compulsion is still there.  I know that buying something won’t make me any happier, really.  I grew up with plenty of “stuff,” and I saw that my family didn’t really benefit from it.  I know I have more stuff than any one human needs, that there are people out there who do have actual needs for food and medicine, but while grasping this helped me curb my spending somewhat, I still shopped on.  Somehow I can’t escape that rush, of buying something new.  If I’m out with friends and we step into a store, odds are I will buy something.  I try on a cute dress, and I imagine where I’ll where it; church, or a wedding, or work, and when people admire it, they simply vindicate my thoughts that it will make my life better.

Recently, something has changed.  See, I was lucky enough to not have to pay for college, and I managed to find jobs that provided me with food and housing in addition to wages, so I never had many major expenses. But suddenly, post-graduation, I realized that money was not in endless supply.  There were enough actual needs taking money out (rent, food, health insurance) and not that much income coming in, and I realized I needed to become more frugal or my bank account would soon deplete to a dangerous level.  

Online shopping is a dangerous thing.  It’s so easy to just click, click, click, and all of a sudden you’ve bought a whole new wardrobe. It hardly feels like real money; it’s like a game. Recently though, after clicking through a website picking out clothes to wear to work, I clicked, clicked, clicked… but I didn’t click the last click. Something stopped me from completing the purchase.  I saved my “shopping cart” and left.  I came back a few days later, and removed a couple of items. I clicked on, filling out information, but again, something stopped me. I returned again later in the week, having narrowed it down to two items, but still didn’t buy it. I thought, you know, I don’t really need this. And I left.  And suddenly, I felt the strangest feeling. It was such a rush, but it wasn’t the rush I got from buying things. It was a rush of savings. I almost spent $70, but I didn’t.  It felt like I had magically gained this extra money.  It happened again when I almost bought new hair product I had heard about; click, click, click, and then I thought, I have hair product.  I don’t need more until this runs out. $30, in the bank.

There is a power in frugality that I had never realized.  I think it stems from overcoming the lure of slick advertising. When I make a conscious choice not to buy something, even though I want it, it is a small victory over the consumerist mentality that has pervaded our culture.  And every time I don’t buy that dress/lip gloss/hair gel, and life goes on exactly the same, it reinforces the realization that it was never something I needed in the first place.

Other Duties as Assigned

In looking back on my work history, and in the midst of the post-grad job search, I’ve come to realize that in job descriptions, so much rides upon four words: Other duties as assigned.  In this unassuming, intentionally vague little phrase lies a whole host of tasks that will inevitably fall to you, the lackey, yet are not described specifically in the list of tasks involved in the position, either because the supervisor is so used to them being done they don’t even consider how they get done, or because if they were addressed, any sane applicant would flee the premises immediately.  Some of my “other duties as assigned” have included:

• Chopping up a 6 lb watermelon
• Dumpster diving
• Watering Natasha, the African violet
• Wearing a hoopskirt and wide-brimmed hat
• Picking up trash with one of those sticks with the claw at the end
• Fetching smoothies for the office
• Directing traffic in a parking lot for four hours
• Assembling furniture
• Driving my boss to LAX
• Chipping away the ice built up in a freezer
• Cleaning a three-foot, bright pink juice stain out of the carpet
• Ordering a life-size cut-out of David Hasselhoff

Were any of these presented to me before I accepted the position?  Certainly not. But I willingly carried them out, as deadening, degrading, or downright disgusting as they were, mainly in the hope that someday in the future, I could come back to that supervisor, look them in the eye, and ask them for a reference, smiling with my mouth, but telling them with the intensity bordering on insanity in my eyes that if they refused, I would reveal the humiliations involved in their filthy work. That or overturn their desk.

When Will I Ever Need to Know This?

In high school, I didn’t work in a clothing store or ice cream shop like so many of my peers.  Instead, I got a job at my local YMCA, being attacked daily by wet, screaming howler monkeys.  Some refer to this as “swimming lessons.”  Let me tell you, calling it swimming is a stretch for some of those kids, but okay.  I did it for two years of high school, as well as one summer after freshman year of college.  It was a natural choice since I did water polo and swim team, I was already in the pool most of the day, and I had the skills to teach.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love kids, I really do, I plan on having a whole brood of kids.  But landsakes, did this job test my patience.  From the terrified-and-shrill screamers who would take off strips of flesh if you tried to get them anywhere near the water, to the “I couldn’t hold it any longer” kids who ruin pool day for everyone, it made for some trying times.  The worst type, however, were the overly brave types, who, despite being told eighteen times that unless you’re with teacher you stay on the stairs/platform/wall, would wait for you to turn your back with another student, then immediately charge into the water with abandon, laughing until their face sank below the water.  You then had to tuck the kid you were currently with under your arm like a football and charge back across the pool to the tiny tot who was looking up from under the surface, eyes full of panic.  Then, after you pulled them up from the depths and dragged them back to safety, explaining, yet again, that this is why you wait for teacher, they would do it again! Good grief.  Those delightful miniature people, combined with countless meetings and trainings, may have made me slightly bitter.  After that last summer of work, I left gleefully thinking “See ya, suckers!  I will never do that again!”

Au contraire.

In my junior year of college I went abroad to Thailand.  The last month of the semester was spent in a village in the foothills of the Himalayas, where we lived with them and learned about that tribe’s particular culture.  Though it was larger as far as villages in the area go, it was remote.  Bathing involved either hauling a trashcan full of water up to the bathroom (and using it sparingly), or going to the river.

*Sidenote

Isn’t it funny how your standards change depending on how you live?  Here I’ll take all this time to primp and put on makeup and cute clothes and still don’t always like how I look, but there, when we returned to the city after the village, I took an actual shower, put on a clean shirt and a coat of mascara and thought “Damn. I look good.”

*End sidenote

The children from the village usually went with us to the river to swim around and bathe.  One day a truck was heading to the river, and I opted not to go, having showered within the last three days.  It sticks in my memory very clearly, the decision not to go, because of what happened afterward.  A girl from a neighboring village had gone to the river with her father shortly before our group.  He got out of the water before she did, and I think he may have laid down to take a nap.  Maybe he only turned aside for a second.  But when he looked back at the water, she was gone.  When our group got there, people were already searching, and our students joined in the efforts, being stronger swimmers than most of the locals.  After a while she was found on the bottom of the river.  I’m told the sound of the father’s cry when they pulled her out was nightmarish.  Every person who went to the river that day came back with a haunted look in their eyes.

We didn’t go to the river for several days after that.  When it was finally decided that we could go again, none of the children wanted to come.  After some convincing they agreed to go later that afternoon.  At some point during the day, the assistant for our group came up to me and said that he had heard that I taught swimming lessons, and he thought it would be good for me to teach the local kids.  The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but I readily agreed.  When we got to the river the older girls wouldn’t get in, but two little twins, as fearless as any YMCA-er, jumped on in.  Using my broken Thai and a lot of ridiculous arm motions, I taught them as best as I could.  Eventually the older girls got in as well, and I worked with them, mainly to teach them not to be afraid, because panic is the thing that gets you in trouble.  I got them to put their heads in the water and paddle back and forth, enough that they could hopefully get themselves safely to shore if they drifted out too deep.

The YMCA was just a way to make spending money to me.  I never thought of it as a useful skill, or something that could actually potentially save people.  But I can’t shake the feeling that God knew.  God weaves together the parts of our lives in ways we can’t fathom.  Years from now, who knows what God will be doing in your life, what random experiences he will use for his purpose?  It’s taught me (I hope) to not disvalue anything, or take it at face value.  Some of the things I’ve done or read in the past four years of college have seemed, well, useless. And while I have come to appreciate the value of education for education’s sake, I’ve definitely been guilty of thinking “When will I ever need to know this?”  There are things that I just love to learn about.  But the others, that I don’t love so much… I trust that there is a reason, for the tedious, the mundane, the boring.  Maybe I will find out that reason in the future, maybe I won’t.  But God knows, and I think we just have to have faith that he will put it to use in his time.