The Lawsons did Dallas!

Wait a minute...I'm the cool one.
August 22, 2007

I can't let you all just laugh at someone elses blog today! I can't handle that...so here's a story for you:

Now that the school year has started, my babysitting schedule has changed quite a bit. The biggest change is the fact that I'm now watching three children instead of one. Two days a week my friend brings her 20 month old son and her 5 month old son over to my place and I watch them for about six hours.

What can I say, other than HOLY. CRAP-A-MOLY. That is not an easy gig. Yesterday I was literally shooting myself in the side of the head with James's rubber band gun, repeating the phrase "I had a 4.0 in grad school," as the baby squawked, the 20 month old played in the dog's water dish and James removed his own poopy diaper.

Two days a week I pick Garfield (remember, not his real name) up from Montessori school, bring him back to his house and we hang out until dinner time. Much more chillaxed than the other job.

And one day a week James and I stay home by ourselves, eat mint chocolate chip ice cream, watch out favorite shows and pretend to do the laundry. I like that day the best.

Today was my Garfield pick-up day, the first one actually. His preschool is about a mile and a half away from my apartment, and for some reason I had the warped idea to run to his school to pick him up. You know, a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing. So I loaded James into one side of the double jogging stroller, and off we went.

Let me just start this story by offering up this piece of advice: if you ever see a woman pushing a double stroller containing only one child, do whatever you need to do to refrain yourself from saying something idiotic like, "Lost one!" I courtesy giggled the first three times I heard this joke during the first mile.

But the fourth time, oh the fourth time...that's when I decided that it was my turn to be witty! This maintenance man looked at my stroller, looked at me and lightheartedly said, "Looks like you lost one, ma'am...heh, heh, heh." So I stopped, put a confused look on my faced, peered into the stroller, looked at the man with the widest eyes I could make, dramatically gasped for air and said, "OH MY GOODNESS. I can't believe I did that." Then I ran away as fast as I possibly could, as if to collect my missing child before he took my station wagon for a joy ride.

For that moment I had regained the feeling of control in my life, and wow, it felt good.

I arrived at the preschool a few minutes later, and let's just say I was the only mom who literally ran to pick up a child. A few well-dressed Dallas-type moms chatted on the front lawn as I ran up, farting my brains out and sweating like a fat man wearing a wool sweater in death valley. The double stroller has a duct-taped handle bar, a poop stain (from and kid or a dog, I'm not sure), and contained my dirty little two year old who wasn't wearing any pants.

**Side note: in case you haven't put two and two together yet, James only wears pants on Sundays, it's his fashion signature.**

For a split second I felt inferior. You know, the nasty little babysitter with the jerry-rigged stroller. Then I had a realization of sorts. I thought to myself, "Amy. You RAN here and you're about to RUN back home. YOU are the cool one." And it's true, anyone can use their Volvo Wagon to pick a kid up from preschool, but not everyone relies on their Nikes.

So I put on my confidence suit, chatted with the moms, put Garfield into the stroller next to James, and off we ran--farting, of course, the whole way home.