Once upon a Saturday …(around the time Cinderella and I both turn into a pumpkin)…

…I was putting my socks on…

A six-year-old’s feet:

Her: “They almost fit!”
Me: “Yes, they do! My feet are pretty small – but not as small as yours.”
Her: (Sigh) “I guess that’s part of growing up, am I right?”

Let me backtrack for some context here:

A friend of mine had been called in to assist an emergency surgery on a neonate at nine at night.

In a pinch, he asked me for babysitting help.

Deciding I was ripe to collect some karma coins, I agreed to do what runs 100% counter-intuitive to my desires (of being a childless woman who curls into bed by 10 with tea with a book like a grandma waiting patiently for the sweet release of death to arrive now that she’s 30). And books are exactly what came to mind today. Especially after my “stay up till 3 A.M.” act of selfless service. You see, I was asked to guard a spirited and knowledge-hungry six year old human child for several hours after her dad had set her up with an ipad infused with kid-documentaries about animals. The idea was she’d watch till she fell asleep. And I’d knock out some articles on my laptop in the next room. That didn’t happen. However, I was so ridiculously impressed that when she came in every fifteen minutes with a factoid, I felt compelled to drop everything and listen to how these monkeys that look like Squidward have four stomachs. Or how high cheetahs can jump. Finally, after her fourth time shuffling into my room, she quietly asked,

“Wanna come watch with me?”

Then I heard myself utter that awful phrase, “Let me just finish my work-….”

Ugh…

I’d skipped from the titles of “halfway to old maid” to “Gru at the beginning” in about point five seconds – and cleared the “babysitter” hurdle altogether in a single cheetah leap. As this nauseating realization came over me, my fingers levitated off the keyboard as if controlled by puppet strings of self awareness. I turned to the visibly dejected child and said, “Ya know what? I’m coming in right now. Go ahead and start up the show.”

She was so elated, I’m still not sure if she shat herself a little.

So, we watched while she accosted my poor dotard of a shih-tzu, and she may or may not have melted my heart and ego alike by laughing hysterically at my stupid jokes and silly voices. I don’t have a maternal bone in my body, so I had to agree with her when she mused, “This is kinda like a sleepover!” Yes, just like sleepovers. The sleepovers we’d have when we invited Nyema – the most hyperactive child in school.

But unlike Nyema, this kid is equal parts Wikipedia and wild.

I wasn’t one millionth as smart or intuitive when I was that age. People say that a lot, but this one seemed to have this multi-dimensional attention span. It was quite a thing to witness – even though she was turning to talk to me or dance around my living room on tip toes, she still seemed to have a second tentacle of her brain branching out and latching onto what they were saying in the show. This worked against me. ‘cause I’d occasionally ask her a specific about the show’s storyline (my attempted trickery to get her to take a seat and re-focus her attention). But she’d just give the right answer without skipping a beat (or discontinuing actual skipping around the room) with a level of matter-of-factness that left me feeling too stupid and awestruck to be vexed.

Impressive as this display was, it did make me think (after the fact) about the invaluable experience of other – more tangible – educational mediums where you have to maintain focus. Like actual books. With books, you’re not allowed to get distracted while some footage rolls on with or without you. If you snooze, you lose out on the story – so you have to read the page again. If you don’t know a word, the show can’t go on without you looking it up. I was reminded of this when the show covered baby porcupines. I tried to explain that “porcupettes” are called that more because “-ette” means small… and less ’cause they look like “pets” (even though we both totally wanted one for a pet). I’m still not sure if she got it, but I was too tired (it was midnight and she wouldn’t sleep) to hammer it home.

This particular kid reads heaps at home already, so I know it’s not like she’s got a lack of literature. Her dad just never would’ve expected me to read books with her into the wee hours of the morning – so the ipad made sense. However, if I ever accept a child challenge like this from anyone else again, that’s something I’d wanna do (if they won’t fluffing sleep and let me work). That’s right, as someone charged with the task of not letting your progeny die for a few hours – I’m going to use them as an excuse to read out loud about sentient cats on a hero’s journey. What do I get out of it? Aside from getting to pretend I wouldn’t be reading picture books anyway by my lone? I get to know that someone who’s going to be my age one day will have that many more hours of singular focus on a good message at their foundation.

Plus, I’m led to believe literature’s a better soporific than technology late at night.

(The blue light interrupts our natural sleep cycle if we watch it too long after dark.)

So, maybe you guys out there can help me with some kid-lit suggestions.

I’ll get the ball rolling by spitballing some personal faves: If we’re going old school – I liked Shel Silverstein with her positive messages (more than I liked Sweet Pickles – littered with defective characters and the focus being on how they unravel in a cartoony pool of their own laziness and negativity). The Serendipity books were beautifully illustrated with fantastic messages (although I’d come to misinterpret the one about “Catundra” for half my little life to mean that fat people are worthless until they get skinny.). Then (more recently) Seuss-like “Big Dog, Little Dog” book I bought my niece last year had such an excellent message about simplifying problems that I might buy it for myself as a reminder on a daily basis. And then, obviously, there’s Russell Brand’s “Trickster Tales” which I intend to buy one copy of for my niece and one for myself.

(Haven’t read it yet, but I like the themes about interconnectedness and sharing and not being douchey. Here’s some more of the book, tested out on actual mini-people):


(*Brand wisdom for the kid-ignorant like me: if you start to lose the goldfish-long attention span of your child audience, flip the book around so they can see the pretty pictures. Noted. Also, this book def has a few words in it that make it need definite parental pre-screening.)

In sum: I still wouldn’t ever volunteer to babysit. And I don’t plan on having children of my own -I’m too selfish and it’s too much hard work. But I suppose I can be un-selfish enough to nab some preapproved just-in-case bookcase fodder for any other times I feel like raking in the karmic brownie points. Because as campy as that Whitney song is, these tiny people are indeed the future [humans who could potentially turn into someone as insane as I am within a mere twenty plus years]. And that’s terrifying. I’m not worried about where this particular kid is headed.

But as for the next time I agree to lend out my ill-fitting socks?

This Gru’s gonna volunteer entertainment variety.

In hopes I’m helping the feet filling them stay headed to the moon and sun alike.

(Though an ideal “happily ever after” would be if I learned how to induce bedtime better.)