Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Babysitters' Club, Only With Fewer Twelve-Year-Old Girls

A couple days ago I got my first opportunity to babysit Finn Thomas Leedahl, all by myself. Actually, I had never babysat for a child this young before. It was kind of surreal (not to mention probably terrifying for Lane and Skye) to have a little baby be completely and totally reliant on ME. I mean sure, I've played 'The Sims' on computer quite a bit, and there was the assortment of girls that I roofied back in my college heyday, and one time I did pay a homeless guy 50 bucks if he would follow my every command for 24 hours straight.....but this time, another human being's life was in my hands for real.


This is my "Look Lane and Skye, everything's under control, we're just chillin' in the rain forest and talking about how I cost myself 25 fantasy football points by cutting Jeremy Maclin when two of my receivers had a bye this week. Even though Finn spit up all over my Dikembe Mutombo shirt I'm not too worried about it, as evidenced by the thumbs up" Serious Face.


Until Finn was born, I had never even held a baby before, but I got over that fear a couple months ago, so that is no longer an issue. Luckily I never had to change a diaper during my shift, and Finn spit up on me within the first 10 minutes, so we got that out of the way quickly. I mixed up a bottle, fed him, and let him grab a quick nap in my lap, and then we played in his rain forest and chit-chatted (it was a pretty one-sided conversation, but that's cool.) Anytime he threatened to start getting fussy, I would start humming the theme from 'The Office' in a very loud and very high-pitched voice. As soon as I discovered that worked like gangbusters, it was all smooth sailing. I look forward to my next opportunity to hang out with the little guy (and I don't mean that in a Tyler Hansbrough kind of way.)


Confession: I read 'The Babysitter's Club' books when I was in elementary school. Like, a lot.