2005-09-14 - 11:41 p.m.
You can't fly. Know why?

Cuz you're a penguin. That's why. You can't fly. Know why? Cuz you're still in your egg!

Or so I was told this evening by the absolutely 100% delightful child that I babysit. Logically, I know that the twos are still considered terrible. I'm sure this kid is capable of monstrous tantrums. But to me, he's this magnificently compact packet of energy and intelligence, and he just makes my heart sing. He used to scream for 45 minutes whenever I came over, but lately he only cries for a few minutes, if at all. Then we're off! We are firefighters, driving our pumper truck to the scene of a fire! ("I don't like the ladder truck," he says. "I like the pumper truck.") We are baby birds, in our eggs! We hatch, and then eat our eggs, which he has cooked for us. We are fixing a crane! (Also known as the back steps) We are playing baseball! We are eating popsicles! No...not popsicles. YOGURT POPS. We do NOT have to potty, no we DO NOT. Nope. Not one bit. Except we're dancing around a bit.

I hope when it's finally time for MB & I to have kids, that they're as cool as he is. Otherwise, I may have to fix the crane myself.


I posted this almost a year ago on my first, very briefly-used Diaryland site. I forgot all about it until the bibliophile mentioned that she'd always been fond of that entry. I kidsat for the same little boy last night, and it made me think of it again. He's nearly four years old now, and seems more of a boy than a baby every time I see him. I haven't been the babysitter since his third birthday, however, when he declared that since he was no longer a baby, he no longer had a babysitter. "Kidsitter," he said firmly. "I'm NOT a baby." He once overheard me say "This is the babysitter" on the phone, and yelled from the bathroom, "No! Kid! Not baby! Kid!"

Back when I first started sitting for him, he didn't really talk yet, and the words he did say were pretty much gibberish to me. Luckily his parents had taught him to sign some things, so he could tell me when he was hungry or thirsty, and we could talk about some animals and the moon. Oh, and his dad's Harley ("Hossey"). Now he talks a mile a minute, and I understand almost everything. He's constantly coming up with new ways to be amazing.

Last night, he was telling me about a plow he'd seen behind a tractor that was going down the road near his house (he lives in an old farmhouse surrounded by cropland and a dairy farm). As he described the plow, he held up his fingers in a weird position to show me what the teeth of the plow had looked like. That simple gesture, which would've been totally ordinary in an adult, seemed so extraordinary from someone whose clothes are still marked with a T for toddler.

During dinner, he demanded that I not sing along with the Simon & Garfunkel CD that his parents had left playing in the kitchen, but repeatedly requested that I "sing a song" or "tell a story." He told a few himself. I sang a song I learned at summer camp:


"Percy"

Way up north in the ice and snow
Where the temperature drops to forty below
Who's the happiest one up there? Percy the pale-faced polar bear.

Sleeps all day and then at night, catch a few fish by the pale moonlight
Has no worries, has no cares... Percy the pale-faced polar bear.

Then one day a hunter came, caught poor Percy by the snout.
Put him in a great big cage... Percy howled and he growled, but he couldn't get out!
Now he's living in the zoo... Funny thing is he likes it too.
'Cause he met his girlfriend there... And she loves Percy the pale-faced polar bear.

Who? Percy the pale-faced polar bear.

Except I changed "pale-faced" to "happy" when it became clear that the kid was trying to learn the song, and that he didn't know what "pale-faced" meant or how to say it. Good Lord, it was cute to see him, mouthing the words along with me as he listened with a very intent expression.



This all seems painfully familiar...

Earlier this evening, I went to avail myself of the toilet in the half bath and I heard a dripping noise that was not coming from me, if you know what I mean. It sounded like it was coming from the wall behind my head.

I decided to go into the full bath to see if I could hear it from that side, and I noticed that the carpet was squishy and wet in front of the bathroom door. Ummmm...

I called MB into the half-bath, then the full-bath, and he heard the drip, too. He went back to the living room, and I noticed a dripping sound IN the full bath. I looked up, and there were ominous bubbles in the ceiling with drips coming down the wall. UMMMM...

The landlord is supposed to send maintenance in the morning.

I went into our bedroom just now, and noticed a small bubble forming in the half bath ceiling. There must be a huge pool trapped between the upstairs neighbors' subfloor and our ceiling. We can hear it dripping down inside the walls, and it's dripping out of the pocket doors and seeping into the carpet. This sucks, though I guess it could be worse. It could be a giant puddle in the living room floor. This one developed slowly enough that we were able to move stuff out of the dampest areas before anything got ruined.

The last time there was a leak in the half-bath, I came home from work to find an inch and a half of standing water in the floor. The maintenance crew did a half-assed job shop-vaccing the carpet, and the apartment smelled asserific for nearly a week. I just hope the mildew smell doesn't come back.





Konichiwa

MB and I have chosen our Halloween costumes for this year (And probably the next three or four years, based on how much they'll cost when all is said and done):



The black fabric is for MB's kimono, and the blue is for mine:




My mom will be our seamstress, because she rules. She made my wedding dress which I absolutely loved, and which looked 100 times better than it does in this picture:



I'm looking forward to trying out a new Halloween look, though I'm still fond of my costume from the past two years:



I think the fairy costume is cute, like an Amy Brown fairy. MB, however, is not a fan, and calls it my "slutty pixie" outfit. Can't please everyone, I guess.



OMG. I love this.

"Angie in the Sky with Fleur Chons" (hilarious Project Runway recap). Props to Y at Joy Unexpected, from whom I lifted the linkage.



Reading: homework

Playing: Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel