sat the baby
Dec. 18th, 2023 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressI got to sit on a baby, for the first time in ages and ages!
Gosh, this honestly might've been the first time I've done actual babysitting since The Nanny Year, and given that the RBeast is now in third grade, that's been Some Time. And it's definitely been the first time with an actual _baby_ in longer! It's nice to know I haven't totally forgotten the skills, but dang, that awkward stage where they're too squirmy to leave unattended but big and mobile and moving is a heavy stage!
Anyways, I am babysitting a friendbaby who lives not-too-far from me! I am excited not just for this time round, but for future sittings as well! I am a busy beast, and not often available, but I really really like hanging with a wee one. Even when they are made of endless wailing because they didn't get quite enough nap and now mama is gone. We read a book or two and looked at the other baby in the mirror, and I sang some songs (the biggest hit of which was "naked baby" and was sung in between shedding day clothes and putting on pyjamas) and it was just...a nice evening at home with a baby!
It feels right, as I am grown into adulthood, for me to be doing this. Specifically, for me to be doing exactly this to be taking care of a baby that is not mine in the literal sense of the world, but is part of my community, and I part of its village. I made my peace long _long_ ago with the fact that I'm not going to have my own children, but this is explicitly a thing I want in my life.
I want to help raise other people's children. I want to bounce the crying baby while the parents go somewhere else, do something else, have some quiet and peace and sense of self (or just a chance to go to Morris practice unencumbered). I want to carve pumpkins with a four year old. I want to send presents and letters and math ideas to five year olds. I want to tease an eight year old about what she's learning at school and hear her tell stories about the witchcraft and potions classes she's doing. I want to slip an eleven year old a pronoun pin to affirm their new sense of self. I want to congratulate a seventeen year old on his video game achievements that he's excited to tell me in the five minutes between classes.
(All of those are true stories, and all in the last year or so. I'm doing alright, it turns out.)
I want to be what I had growing up: an adult who treats children like people. And I want to be what I now realize my parents had growing up: a friend who's willing to try and help with the endless day-to-day, with the screaming and the housecleaning and the too many dipers and the probably teething and the heartbreak and excitement and learning how to win the metagame and wrestling and bouncing off the walls and reading books and watching movies and just...being part of a world that is more than just myself.
I like being part of a community. I like being trained and practiced and able to serve in some of the ways that are really valuable --I can improv a song, ready a bottle one-handed, fall over dramatically with or without a child's assisstance, quote the entirety of Moo Baa Tra-la-la from memory, and just be patient and patient and patient. I can make conversation with pretty much any age, hit an appropriate level of snark, help with math homework (and maybe other subjects), teach a child to become a fully grown human.
It's the best thing in life, and I'm glad for the opportunity.
~Sor
MOOP!
Gosh, this honestly might've been the first time I've done actual babysitting since The Nanny Year, and given that the RBeast is now in third grade, that's been Some Time. And it's definitely been the first time with an actual _baby_ in longer! It's nice to know I haven't totally forgotten the skills, but dang, that awkward stage where they're too squirmy to leave unattended but big and mobile and moving is a heavy stage!
Anyways, I am babysitting a friendbaby who lives not-too-far from me! I am excited not just for this time round, but for future sittings as well! I am a busy beast, and not often available, but I really really like hanging with a wee one. Even when they are made of endless wailing because they didn't get quite enough nap and now mama is gone. We read a book or two and looked at the other baby in the mirror, and I sang some songs (the biggest hit of which was "naked baby" and was sung in between shedding day clothes and putting on pyjamas) and it was just...a nice evening at home with a baby!
It feels right, as I am grown into adulthood, for me to be doing this. Specifically, for me to be doing exactly this to be taking care of a baby that is not mine in the literal sense of the world, but is part of my community, and I part of its village. I made my peace long _long_ ago with the fact that I'm not going to have my own children, but this is explicitly a thing I want in my life.
I want to help raise other people's children. I want to bounce the crying baby while the parents go somewhere else, do something else, have some quiet and peace and sense of self (or just a chance to go to Morris practice unencumbered). I want to carve pumpkins with a four year old. I want to send presents and letters and math ideas to five year olds. I want to tease an eight year old about what she's learning at school and hear her tell stories about the witchcraft and potions classes she's doing. I want to slip an eleven year old a pronoun pin to affirm their new sense of self. I want to congratulate a seventeen year old on his video game achievements that he's excited to tell me in the five minutes between classes.
(All of those are true stories, and all in the last year or so. I'm doing alright, it turns out.)
I want to be what I had growing up: an adult who treats children like people. And I want to be what I now realize my parents had growing up: a friend who's willing to try and help with the endless day-to-day, with the screaming and the housecleaning and the too many dipers and the probably teething and the heartbreak and excitement and learning how to win the metagame and wrestling and bouncing off the walls and reading books and watching movies and just...being part of a world that is more than just myself.
I like being part of a community. I like being trained and practiced and able to serve in some of the ways that are really valuable --I can improv a song, ready a bottle one-handed, fall over dramatically with or without a child's assisstance, quote the entirety of Moo Baa Tra-la-la from memory, and just be patient and patient and patient. I can make conversation with pretty much any age, hit an appropriate level of snark, help with math homework (and maybe other subjects), teach a child to become a fully grown human.
It's the best thing in life, and I'm glad for the opportunity.
~Sor
MOOP!