The Babysitter Cometh

We finally gots us an outside babysitter! Once Brian's niece went to college (a full year and a half ago) we were really strapped for sitters and consequently, didn't go out. Ever. Anywhere.

We managed to hook up with the daughter of our old next door neighbor. She is a junior, will have her license in 25 days, and looks to be just awesome with kids. I like her because she jumped right in to play with Annie the other night. Oh, and she assured us that she doesn't go out much because either her friends don't want to do anything, or they want to drink which does not interest her. Are y'all jealous yet?

But wait! There's more! She has already told her mother that she does not want to go away to college so we are talking at least 5 more years of availability here, people. And, come summer, she wants to get a job at Annie's "school". But we will have already staked our claim to her by the time other parents come sniffing around.

I never thought finding a sitter would be so hard. I see why it is though. While I was babysitting at 13 (making a whole one dollar an hour), I must have been a horrendous sitter. I always liked kids but I am fairly certain I wouldn't have picked up after us and if anything bad had happened, I don't know if I was qualified to handle it. In short: I wouldn't want me or anyone like me to sit my kids. Once when I was sitting the Smiths, they were so bad that I called up my dad and had him act like he was Santa and threaten them with coal. Another time, I was babysitting for a neighbor's grandchildren. After they fell asleep I remembered that they had a daughter that died and I got it in my head that she died in their house. Then I heard noises coming from the room the baby was sleeping in and no one bothered to tell me that they had a cat rattling around upstairs and I had to call my sister to come over and keep me company.

I used my first Santa threats on Annie yesterday. She is going through a bad phase of collapsing and whining every time she doesn't get her way. By 10 a.m. yesterday morning she had had three such collapses and I played the Santa card. These collapses make me INSANE. She comes off as such a spoiled child when she does it, and that's one thing I simply can't abide by. And she is starting to act bratty in stores when I tell her she can't have something. How did that happen? I have been so careful to not get her everything she asks for and yet she acts as though she'll die if she can't have something. It makes my blood absolutely boil.

Oh, hey, don't take your kid to see Happy Feet. Out local rag attributed its PG rating to "minor peril" but the movie was scary! And dark. And NOT funny. The animation was at times quite breathtaking but it is not a movie for the very young. Plus (middle age lady alert), when did movies get so LOUD?? Good lord, my teeth were shaking. Even in parts of the movie that weren't scary, the music builds to such a crescendo at such high decibals that my heart was pounding. Turn it DOWN, ya whippersnappers!

Annie usually loves the movies, too. She perches her popcorn on her lap and methodically plows through it, only pausing for an occassional wave of the hand that indicates she is ready for her beverage to be brought to her lips. Heh-can't imagine why she's spoiled! I could tell the movie was making her uneasy, though she held it together. Until we went to the bathroom in the theatre afterwards and the freakin' hand driers sounded like goddamn freight trains and then she sort of broke down a little on the way out. I promised her that next time we'd go to a more gentle movie. A friend suggested Charlotte's Web but I know what happens at the end and no thank you.

Wasted words

I know it's anal retentive but there are certain groupings of words that are very common in conversation that need not exist. Hrm, maybe not anal retentive, but minimalistic.

In the past few years I have noticed the increasing popularity of beginning sentences with this: Not for nothing. As in, "Not for nothing, but your shoes are untied". What does this mean? If it's not for nothing, is it for something? And since you are saying it, can't I just assume that you are telling me for some reason? How come no one says, "For something, your shoes are untied". Is this from The Sopranos because I don't watch the Sopranos and like to think that everything I don't quite comprehend might originate there.

This next peeve usually appears at the end of a sentence: whatnot. To me it's a pretty lazy petering out of a sentence, the speaker being too tired to really finish strong, he or she wraps it up vaguely, letting the listener fill in the blanks. "After I had a 104 degree tempreature for 5 days, I finally insisted that the doctor precribe some antibiotics or whatnot." Whatnot is interchangeable with the old standby: what have you. That one may be more vexing, though, as it is clearly a question that there is no answer for.

How about people who start there statements with the word listen. To people who do this, I say, "Listen, I am having this conversation with you, you can safely assume that even though I might be bored I am at the very least listening". Big on soap operas as in: Listen, Eden or Listen Colton.

Another unnecessary waste of vocals is: I'm just saying. Yes, we know you are just saying. Your lips move and words come out and that is you just saying.

Oh! oh! How about this one, popular among the realiteratti, specifically of the MTV variety: yo. I am not referring to the attention getting YO! That bothers me not at all. What I am puzzled by is yo as the suffix to entire sentences, yo. What is this (yo)?? WHY is this (yo)?? I plain don't get it, yo.

And since we were talking about reality TV, let me finish with this related irritant: The Reality TV Defense for Shite-y Behavior: I'm the type of person that will tell you what I think about you. Why is that okay? Does that make you a good person? No, it makes you a bitch. I don't want to know if you hate me, thanks. Or if you think I smell, am fat, dumb, slow,mean or whatnot. Yo.