My weekend in the Big Apple*

*Some alternate title ideas included:
"Babysitting for Friends: the Real Birth Control"
"Screaming Children and Bus Trips: Oh the Horror"

So as you can see from the above, my weekend was in many ways defined by the children I was around. My best friend from high school has a one-year old (which still completely weirds me out) and we spent a lot of time watching him while she went to rehearsals, performances, etc. Her son, whose real name is Tymin but I like to shorten to Ty, is really, really well behaved and good natured. Even still, just watching him for a few hours pretty much wore me out. New York is not exactly friendly to kids in strollers. Especially kids who are just starting to be mobile and would really much rather be crawling around on the ground, even if that ground is a filthy NY sidewalk. And the mama, she just seems tired all the time. Much as I do eventually want to have children some day, the fact that that day seems very far away at this moment is more than okay with me.

I tell Misty (the mama) all the time that I still cannot believe she has a child. Maybe it's because I was always the one doing the babysitting to earn extra money, while she never even changed a diaper until it was her son's. Or maybe it's just that this girl that I used to have sleepovers with and lot of silly, stupid fun could really be doing so very, very differently with her life than mine. I have another friend from high school that has a baby, but she's the type that was always meant to have one by the ripe old age of 24 (at least in my head) so it's less weird. I should say though that watching Misty with her child is (for lack of a better word) beautiful. She loves the mess out of that kid. And of all of the things that I worry about that kids need, and the awesome responsibility that those needs entail, I feel at least she's got the most important part of it down.

Oh, and as for the bus: on my four hour bus ride home, there was this horrid three-year old who threw SHRIEKING fits roughly every 30 minutes. And then did I long for my sweet but mobile one-year old...