Babysitting Blues

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By Patti Parish-Kaminski, Publisher

After spending a mere half a day helping babysit a precious ten-month-old baby girl, I have a clear and comprehensive understanding of why God made it so that at a certain age, women can no longer reproduce.  Energy, porch sitters, it’s all about energy.

I’m not sure what happened to my energy.  I take vitamins every day, and lots of them – a virtual cornucopia of health and well-being.  I take the iron, the B 12, the C, the D and every other letter of the alphabet in between, including a multi-vitamin which should totally have me covered.  I even have the color-coded weekly organizer like all little old ladies to make certain I take the right ones on the right day.  So, I should be both bullet proof and be able to bounce around like the Energizer bunny, right?

To combat my energy failure after my brief babysitting bout, I went to bed – early.  I knew this would solve the problem, and I’d be good to go in a mere 12ish hours.  Mr. Kaminski was still in school prep hell, so there was no one around to judge me for donning my jammies and getting into bed at 9 pm.  And I slept, hard and long.

Thinking I was good to go the next morning, the other ailment of middle-aged matriarchs reared its ugly head as I opened my eyes.  You see, I am an interactive babysitter.  I’m involved.  I’m engaged.  I play, I tote, I crawl around, I get in the giant play pen and sat cris cross applesauce – hence my energy depletion.  But apparently, all of this interactiveness required use of muscles that were dormant, and they did not appreciate being disturbed.

Two ibuprofen, a mid-morning nap and half a tube of Biofreeze later – yep, I smelled like an old folks’ home – I could finally function at a solid C+ level.  I still couldn’t get up from the floor nor bend to pick anything up I dropped, but I was at least moving without groaning.  I was strategic in my wardrobe choice.  I wore flip flops; no unnecessary bending required.  I’ll call that a win.

Now I’m not certain how one is supposed to “train” for babysitting.  I’m sure there’s child care calisthenics that someone has created somewhere.  I guess I best get to researching that because Aubrey Ann can’t even walk yet.  Just wait until she’s more mobile.  Then the race is really on!  See y’all next week – on the porch!

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Patti Parish-Kaminski

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