Thursday, January 20, 2011

THE RULES


We're watching lil' Estella for the week while her Mom is checking out optimal living situations in Fresno. A losing proposition, I fear. Optimal conditions in Fresno, I mean, not the baby sitting. We were giving a set a rules in the hopes we wouldn't undo in five days all the precise child rearing that Dragon Mom has done with this tot. I hate to break it to her but it won't take that long. Usually when we do long term kindercare for the other grandkids we are given just one rule, well, more a suggestion than a rule - please return the children undamaged. Generally we comply. But this time we got a different set of instructions-
Daily routine:
8:00 - wake up
8:01 - potty time
8:02 - breakfast (organic mango juice, granola, egg white omelet from free range organically fed chickens)
8:03 - 9:00- Rosetta Stone - Mandarin
9:00 - 10:00- Rosetta Stone Cantonese
10:00 - 12:00 - Practice ballet - please work on her  battlement glisse
Lunch - organic free range carrots and fair trade raisins  with hand ground peanut butter (please- no Jif!)
And so on...
And then there's the rules:

Wash hands
No potty mouth
No McDonald's
No more than 1 hour of TV per day
And so on...(if there is something fun for a kid to do she isn't supposed to do it)
One hour of TV? What am I? Mary Fucking Poppins? That's why they had nannies in the old days. Nannies, TV, same thing. Potty mouth may have something to do with the kid's sense of humor. The little darling spent the whole ride back from Rockville trying out her jokes on me. They all had something to do with poop. Which is OK with me since most of my jokes aren't any more sophisticated. What cracked her up the most was telling me that when her Mom got up in the morning she put poop on her shoulder. Then she asked me why I wasn't laughing and I had to tell her that her mother wouldn't approve. Then we both started laughing. I mean, if you knew her mom, her putting poop on her shoulder is kind of funny.  Potty mouth, indeed. I don't know what Mother expects when the kid is being reared in an environment where people are putting poop on their shoulders.


2 comments:

  1. "poop on your shoulder" is the most awesome label ever. We need to start a movement to persuade all the major political blogs to adopt it. Especially with the coming Republican primary, it can't help but come in handy.

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  2. These kids - I tell ya. Yesterday one of them told the other one he was going to kick him in the "nutballs". That term is now in our workplace lexicon.

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