Weeks ago I realized I never see Chris' kids enough
I live one area code over from my young nephews and a neice - they're under 10 years old so i feel like this is my chance to bond and learn about them at a very essential wayso i volunteered to babysit when she needed me
my first tour of duty was this weekend
i arrived at 5pm and she instructed me,
"feed them dinner if they get hungry,
and give them a shower."she and peter went to dinner with peter's dad
i rushed headlong into play with the kids
wrestling with eli and cassidy at once on the couch
gideon arrived home later and played baseball himself in the yardme and cassidy and eli started a chasing game around the yard
the two attacked me with plastic swords and i fended off their jabs by running around them like dodging football playersit was the most aerobic exercise i've had in some time
i could effectively elude them but
eventually I wore down.
i seated myself and continued to sustain pokes and even whips
eli had learned what hurt me -
defending my body meant hurting my handsso i retreated indoors, tricked them into staying outside, and locked myself in for a moment of pain-recovery and peace
cassidy realized she could use her chocolate-milk-in-a-box to drive me mad
she couldn't squeeze hard enough, but eli could -
as i watched in fascinated horror,
elias conducted a stream of dark sugar milk against the sliding glass doori tried to make them clean it up of course a picture of good childrearing responsibility in the mind doesn't match the firm wits of determined diminuitive demons
while i windexed and towelled the door,
eli and cassidy looted the pantry for sugary snacks
gideon meanwhile, still tossing his tennis ball against the wall
watching the proceedings and advising his uncle,
"mommy wouldn't let them eat those,
they're full of sugar"I tried to broker a settlement for eli and cassidy to share an already opened bag of sugar-smack from the afternoon
i thought they might diffuse each other if I pitted brother against sister
i had just relented to give cassidy a single chocolate soccer ball
when the doorbell rangand my sister discovered i hadn't accomplished a thing.
