Flushing Meadows, Queens, March 24, 2007 - Sue and I babysat our niece and nephew for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He's just over 3, she's just over 1. Some would say we've fallen down on our job as aunt and uncle, but you know it's all too easy to fall into a rut of not-having-to-take-care-of-children (I had a 36-year streak going...)
Well, we watched them almost all day, and it went fine. We took them to the Queens Zoo and they didn't get eaten by a sheep or a pudu. We fed them some pretty adventurous Chinese food from Flushing and they loved it. Sophie had her crying moments, but for the most part they were very well-behaved and easy to deal with all day.
So thankfully, it wasn't at all difficult or even tiring. But it was, at times, tedious. It's the constant attention they either require or demand that gets to me. Even when the family was at our place for Easter this past weekend, even with six adults in the house, the two kids don't give anyone a moment's rest. Maybe four adults per child is a better ratio, but given that Sue doesn't approve of polygamy, communal living, or hiring six nannies, it's unlikely that we'll manage to swing that should we ever decide to break out of our we-can-do-anything-we-want-whenever-we-w
(Speaking of which, in a couple of weeks, we're going to France again! Yay!)
(PS - more pictures from the day can be found here)