So lately, my time, it has been all about the babysitting. I've been babysitting a few days every week for two different families who live right down the street from each other in Plymouth, very nice families with very nice kids (excepting the occasional tantrums).

On Thursday I took care of two kids for a mom who is a nurse and works 10-hour shifts four or five times a month. I had to be there at 6:45 am and left at 6:30 pm, which is kind of a crazy long time to babysit... though I realize that their mom spends longer periods with her children, when they're not at school and whatnot. Anyway, despite the early start and the long day, it was really pretty fun. The girl is 5 and goes to kindergarten in the morning, and I helped her get ready and walked her to the bus stop with her brother, who is 3. She goes to the same elementary school that I went to, and it kind of made me miss getting on the bus and heading off to school where I melted crayons on the radiator, ate snacks, and colored. And then I remembered that - oh yeah - I'm an adult now, which means I can tie my own shoes, stay up way past my bedtime, and eat ice cream any time I want! Forget elementary school, I can drive a car!

Anyway, after she went off to school, the rest of the day was devoted to playing some incarnation of a game where the little boy was an animal, be it Rudolph the Reindeer, the whale from Finding Nemo (why the whale and not Nemo or his dad, I don't know), or Spirit the horse. This kid cracks me up; he is just so goofy. First of all, when he says, "Yeah" it comes out sounding a lot like how Lil Jon says "yeah" in that Usher song - you know, something like "YAAAAY-YUH!" Preschoolers are pretty krunk these days, I guess. Second of all, he is always dressing up. And I mean, DRESSing up. They have a whole box of the Disney Princess costumes, which would belong ostensibly to his sister. However, he always wants to wear them, and as I see no problem with it and am rather tickled by this, I help him put them on over his clothes. Maybe he thinks we're going to a ball, I don't know, but it takes a man secure in his masculinity to wear a dress of tulle and shimmering brocade.

As much fun as it is hanging out with the five and under set, I'm still on the hunt for a job, which, you know, is great and all but oh, why can't I get a job? (Insert whiny rant here.) At least babysitting gives me something to do, and some money to pay the bills. And at least my parents love me and don't mind letting me leech off of them for a while, though I mind and feel kind of bad about it, like I'm a defective college grad because I can't get a job and am still living at home. If college were a factory, I'd be one of the products they'd have to recall, like a faulty toy that has the parts kids choke on. I'm a faulty toy. Sigh, sorry, I only spared you half of a whiny rant.

Maybe elementary school would be more fun than being an adult.