Misadventures in Babysitting

I am frequently asked why I only have one child. I am quite happy, not to mention busy, with my one. For most people to cite that I am (1) very good with kids and (2) my first child turned out very beautiful, is more than enough reason to squeeze out a few more. I have many (about 300, give or take) reasons why not. The following instance is most of those reasons.

A couple of summers ago, the three of us had the chance to babysit my wife's nephew and niece, whom I shall refer to as OhNoBoy and OhNoGirl. It just so happened they had relatives whose Spanish Rodeo Show just opened in the high desert, a few minutes drive away (exactly one hundred and eighty, give or take um, fifty for getting lost), so what the heck, we decided to drop by for a few short hours (exactly nine, give or take).

It was, in a word--dusty! Every time a horse moved, every time the stage was reset for the next performers,
we were treated with a fine mix of dust-and-manure clouds swallowing us up and sticking to our sweat-glands.
And since the temperatures easily topped 100'F that summer afternoon, there was plenty of sweat to mix with.

The show itself was delightful. There was a large horse that literally wiggled its butt by stepping side-to-side with its rear legs *only*. It was a sashay that would make RuPaul jealous.
A crowd-pleaser was the trained horse that, from a perfect standstill, would buck and jump straight up about eight feet into the air.
A photograph would have shown the trainer standing right underneath the horse posing in mid-air above him, and you would swear it was a Photoshop trick. It was perfect for the kids, and I could have sworn they were watching it.

My personal favorite (and right now I must apologize for forgetting the camera) was the folkloric Aztec dance number.
Imagine nothing but Polynesian-style drums in the background, and a dozen performers in three-foot tall feather headresses
and shell-chimes attached to their ankles and chest. Just amazing. The real trick was hearing Mexican music that had no accordions in it. Quite refreshing.

But after about an hour of all this, it began to lose its appeal on two certain six-year olds and a four-year old, namely my son and his
two cousins, whom I fondly refer to as "Oh not those two kids again!".
What does one do when the weather is way too sticky-hot and you want to relax in the shade and entertain the kids? Laura found a great solution: It was to suddenly yell to everyone in the vicinity of the State of California,

Kids! Uncle Jon is going to do some magic tricks!

She made this incredible announcement while I was hiding from the heat and trying to quietly eat a half-cup of strawberry-ice raspado (technically a snowcone, but in this humidity and dust, it could have been a warm, loose-packed marmalade and I wouldn't have noticed). I had some loose change, a dusty used kleenex tissue and a Bic pen in my pocket. Not counting the car-keys which I should have used for the Great Disappearing Jon Effect, I would have really liked to know what magic tricks Laura had in mind for me to do.

I didn't have to, since the three kids chose to run in nine opposite directions at the same time, all of which involved getting covered in the gray dirt , charging into the unpaved road used by both trucks and horses, or stepping into one of the six not-dry patches of ground made from the ground mixing from 100% horse urine ("Just Add Gravity!"). Even OhNoGirl, who is always Miss Dainty Magic Princess Lady, was obscenely grimy from tumbling down a slope I lovingly remember as Smells-Like-Dried-Dung Hill. Not a safe or sanitary place to leave children to their own devices, but they seemed to like it. At least the dogs avoided her.
Her younger brother OhNoBoy, unusually large and powerful for his four years, proudly demonstrated his impulse-control malfunction by repeatedly kicking me in the shin with his new cowboy boots. He tried punching and shoving me a few times, but I imparted an ancient Aikido subtlety (also known as "Getting Out Of The Way") which may have deterred him from harming me further. It did not, however, deter his left eyebrow from making friends with a steel pipe on the way down. Thank goodness he's shorter than an Ewok and didn't have far to fall. A little ice and quiet-time and he was back to happily weaving a dirt-blanket.

By around midnight almost everybody had gone home, and I was deeply, nay cosmically, relieved to say goodbye to the kids.
It was time for the hour-long drive home, a hot shower, and some quiet, grown-up time.
So how do you say goodbye to these two without looking too glad about it?
I didn't have to. The intervention came from Laura's unforgettable inspiration:

We're taking these darling children to Disneyland with us tomorrow! Kids, pack up right away!

(It worked; I wasn't too glad about it.)

And so we spent all of Sunday keeping the kids together at The Most Crowded Place On Earth, And It's Only A Ninety-Degree Weekend So You Have To Roast Your Peaches Sitting On The Concrete Sidewalk Waiting For A Parade. Thank goodness those spray bottles with cheap little fans were only $18 each.
The kids were much better behaved however, and I only got shin-kicked twice at a restaurant by OhnoBoy "I Peed in my cousin's Brand-New Star Wars Bed". When I turned to pull away from him, he was unfortunately kicking blindly and had hooked his foot on top of mine. When he pulled away, he balanced himself, wobbled a bit and fell on his right butt-cheek. He got up, looked around the floor, began walking and *then* started to cry to Auntie "I Saw The Whole Thing And No He Did Not Kick You First" Laura.
But that was mostly it for the misbehaving, and they were glad to have spent the day with us.

Their parents (who were very wisely a thousand miles away in Seattle) called to ask, jokingly, if the kids gave us a hard time.
My first instinct was to say, "Both my shins are blue, I might not ever walk the same after this, and am seriously questioning the practical wisdom of having more than one child for anyone on earth. Oh, and I need an ice pack, plus whatever obviously insufficient wage you pay your poor unenviable babysitter or zookeeper or whatever. May the gods of childcare spare me the burden of keeping my sanity when this is done."

Laura just told them,"Oh, kids will be kids; besides, they really liked playing with their Uncle Jon. We miss them already".
She seriously needs to learn some magic tricks.