The Burbs

Shortly after emigrating from Northeast Portland to the suburbs, Party Girl formed a Bunco group. I was the first member enlisted and also the only member that lived 20 miles away. The rest of the group comprised her neighbors of varying upper income levels. These Bunco events are a whole story unto themselves and can be addressed later.

Anyway, each month the members of the group take turns hosting the party at their house. Since I’m the only geographically, economically and spatially challenged member, and no one wants to pay the gas for their SUV to trek over to my side of town, part of the deal of my being willing to come across the tracks was I would have use of Party Girl’s house when my time to host came. Last month was my turn to host, and after witnessing first hand the lengths to which Party Girl goes to have a sparkling domicile and after standing around ineffectually for an uncomfortable amount of time (hey, I did offer to help), simultaneously apologizing and thanking her again and again and again for the use of her home, I grandiosely offered a night of babysitting, anytime, at her house, for payment in return for all her hard work, to which she judiciously agreed.

As it turns out, the date she had in mind was a day I was working. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking forward to a day that started at 5 a.m. and ended after midnight, where the highlight was watching a 6-year-old and a child under 2. I don’t like looking after my own child after a day of work, much less someone else’s.

For anonymity sake, we’ll call Party Girl’s offspring E1 and E2 (E1 being the elder 6-year-old child, Vaughn’s now estranged old buddy, and E2 being the afterthought). True to my form, I had planned to employ my best Supernanny skills and plop them in front of the TV for the next 2 hours until bedtime. Unfortunately, when I got there I was informed the electricity was out on the whole block with no estimated time of return. After circumventing the inevitable wail of abandonment from the 1-1/2-year-old (E2) as the parents left, we stood there staring at each other for a good 20 minutes or so before concluding that we were in danger of entering that 4th dimension where hours pass like minutes if we didn't come up with some kind of entertainment quick. Several rounds of Candyland and Shoots and Ladders later, all the while wrestling E2 off the game board and rescuing innocent game figures from the fate of spending a day or two wandering E2’s intestinal tract, I convinced E1 to go outside to the backyard, hoping for a more child riveting/slothful adult diversion. As we started on our tour, the first thing on the dog's to-do list was to promptly poop in the great expanse of meticulously groomed greenery they quaintly call their backyard. E2 was immediately drawn to this, requiring me to carry her little doll-like frame around the yard to keep her from playing patty poop with the dog’s feces. However, she developed a disturbing fascination with the dog's pile of poop, continually redirecting me with her "oop, oop" and thrusting her pudgy little arm in her attempts to conduct me to make the poop pilgrimage across the lawn multiple times so we could gaze on the dog's mound of elimination, counting the ever increasing crowd’s of flies progress in their maggot production. That seemed to be the most entertaining aspect of the evening for her. Of course, every time we admired the dog's sculpture of excrement, I felt increasing guilt over not cleaning it up off an otherwise immaculate lawn, inventorying just what I thought babysitting duties entailed and if they should include dog waste disposal.

After an untold number of less than subtle glances at the clock, it was finally getting late enough that I could pronounce it bedtime and perform the bedding down festivities, at least with E2.

One thing about babysitting other people’s kids is it allows me to do comparison checks. Now, being accustomed to Vaughn’s remarkable aversion to all things sleep related, I was preparing to fend of the nocturnal resistance for the remainder of the evening. Fortunately, I have a black belt in this particular form of warfare, having had plenty of practice for the last 6+ years.

As I’m putting E2 down to sleep (per parental instructions, including bedtime bottle of milk) and begin to leave the room, I marvel at her feather-light weight, being more familiar with Vaughn’s generous proportions. I don’t think I ever experienced Vaughn at that size, maybe at birth. E1 is supervising the bedding down process, reaffirming to me why I enjoy the pre-speech stage of child development so much.

"My mommy holds her and walks her back and forth before she puts her down." (Yeah, well…Allow me to introduce myself. Vaughn's Mom, otherwise known as Slacker Mom. Slacker Mom ain't down wit dat.) Of course, E1 continues to advise me on further bedtime techniques employed by her parents, as I'm looking over my shoulder at E2, who at this point is collapsed on the mattress of her crib, mouth slacked open with nipple of bottle hanging precariously from one lip and nothing but the whites of her eyes showing beneath her cemented shut eyelids. As foreign as this behavior is to me, I'm pretty sure I'm safe in assuring E1 that her sister has been expeditiously engulfed in Mr. Sandman's generous sprinkling of sleeping dust, in this case sleeping potion, and the pacing of the floor will be unnecessary this evening.

Next I start on E1, figuring this is where my veteran bedtime combat experience will finally be engaged. She sweetly and thoroughly brushes her teeth, swiftly changes into her pajamas and quietly listens to a quick bedtime story, lights out, never to be heard from again. I stumble downstairs, stunned and confused, unsure of what I just experienced. It had all the earmarkings of bedtime but completely unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Is this what average children are like? Is this usual or unusual behavior? Were their bodies snatched when they moved to the burbs and replaced with these odd Stepford children? Hmmm. If so, this just might be reason to seriously consider moving.