Everyone deserves a weekend

Last night we babysat for our friend Senor Sin­ister and his Lovely Wife– we were over there about a month ago for Senor Sinister’s birth­day brunch, and as always, we enjoyed hang­ing out with them and their chil­dren, the Banana and the Baby.  We’ve known the Banana since birth, the Baby, too, and you’ve never met more happy, well-behaved chil­dren.  It’s been great to see the Banana move from baby to tod­dler– we were there the first time she stood up for her­self, for three or four whole sec­onds before she plopped back down on her rump.  She’s inquis­i­tive, artic­u­late, intel­li­gent, sweet, and fun.  She’s also very, very, active.  SS and LW enrich and inter­act with her in a way that stim­u­lates her talk­ing, and she’s very well behaved, though of course she gets tired and cranky like every­one else.  Baby has the same grin Banana did at the age Baby is now, and head held steadily, Baby is way into rock­ing and sit­ting and look­ing around, as well as putting her hands onto every­thing.  Plus?  Baby is warm like the best kind of heat­ing pad and has Baby smell.  What more do you need?

We babysat a few times for our friends T and B when we lived out in W. Mass.  Their son, D., was as inquis­i­tive and ver­bal as the Banana, and his baby sis­ter as adorable as the Baby, though in dif­fer­ent ways.  It’s a joy to see the BH inter­act with the kids, too, because he’s more instinc­tively fun than I am, and can inter­act with them at a goofy level that never fails to make them enjoy them­selves.  D. adored the BH, and the Banana and he were get­ting along like gang­busters before she went to bed– I’m a bit more of a stiff with the tod­dlers, just because I’m less play­ful? carefree?/ more self-conscious? moody? seri­ous?.  He doesn’t have much expe­ri­ence with babies, though, so I bring all my babysit­ting years as a teen into play, not that it’s needed most of the time.  D.‘s lit­tle sis­ter and the Baby are well behaved, sleepy, happy babies who didn’t  need chang­ing once they were put to bed– they just needed just some­one to lis­ten to the mon­i­tors while mom and dad went out and did what the BH and I do every day.  Just be the two of them.

We don’t have chil­dren.  I thought at one point before I was mar­ried that I might want them, but by the time the BH and I were dat­ing, I was less and less cer­tain.  Since he’s ten years older than me, I also didn’t really really have more than ten years to decide.  There were a num­ber of rea­sons I was doubt­ful– my mood swings, my ACOA issues, my fit­ful lev­els of energy, and not want­ing to inflict any of that on a child.  But I also just really enjoyed it being the two of us, even as much as we’ve had a great time with the chil­dren of our friends.  With the PCOS diag­no­sis there­after, which would have made it hard to get preg­nant with­out arti­fi­cial assis­tance, I became even more doubt­ful about giv­ing birth, and I still hadn’t resolved whether I thought I could be a sta­ble par­ent to an adopted one.  The bipo­lar diag­no­sis came not long after I’d already decided it should stay just the two of us– I would never want to pass on the genes for this.  Med­ica­tion and ther­apy make it man­age­able, but I spent so much of my life feel­ing mis­er­able and at the whim of non-understood forces– I could never inflict the risk of that on some­one else, much less my own child.

But we still enjoy kids– and it’s been a joy see­ing all our var­i­ous good friends have and enjoy lovely, active, smart chil­dren.  If every kid could be blessed with par­ents as kind, and firm, and engag­ing as the ones we’ve had the priv­i­lege to know, the world would be a much bet­ter place.  Which is why we offer to babysit.

I get tired just tak­ing care of me.  So I offered us up as babysit­ters– SS and LW were look­ing markedly tired when we were over for brunch, and no won­der, since they put all their heart into their time with their kids.  It’s won­der­ful to see, and their kids will be won­der­ful as a result, but it’s exhaust­ing, and like any care­tak­ing exer­cise, the best care­tak­ers also take some time off for them­selves.  Not because they don’t love their kids, but because not only does every­one deserve a break, but because the time off together means that they get to spend time being just the two of them– some­thing that forms in no small part how they now are as parents.

That adult rela­tion­ship is impor­tant, and deserves some time to itself– the sup­port and love and respect they have for each other forms the foun­da­tion for their rela­tion­ship with their kids and the com­mit­ment the work requires.  It’s so easy to get worn out and for­get in the mid­dle of it, and so easy to fall off of adult con­ver­sa­tion and inter­ac­tions that don’t involve plush toys and organic baby food and play dates– all things that will make for won­der­ful future adults.  If you think of the chil­dren as highly reward­ing but chal­leng­ing job dur­ing the week, well… every­one deserves a week­end, not to men­tion an after­noon off.  It makes you fresher and bet­ter able to tackle the work when it’s over.

Even though it was only a few hours, SS and LW came back look­ing ani­mated and bet­ter for their din­ner and time together– and so much less tired than they’d looked at their brunch.  They were so grate­ful that we’d vol­un­teered, but really, it was no trou­ble.  “It’s nice to go hang out at some­one else’s house for a change,” as the BH said.  It’s even nicer to see our friends feel­ing more relaxed and “them” with each other– as the BH and I have the for­tune to be most of the time.  The Banana and the Baby are lucky to have them– which is why we offered.  Every­one deserves won­der­ful par­ents, and won­der­ful par­ents deserve week­ends, too.

***

It’s snow­ing out this morn­ing, the slow flecked fall of fat flakes falling straight down­ward in the still air– the kind of snow that says it’s cold out and likely to keep on for a bit at this pace.  It most likely won’t stick, it rarely does until much closer to Christ­mas, but it’s a nice change.