Suzy Says

Despite having no maternal instincts whatsover, I seem to have been baby-sitting a lot lately.

On Friday, I looked after Star for about half the day, giving me time to get work out of the way before settling in to watch “Love Story”. Star and I agreed on how romantic the snow looked, not to mention how cute Ali MacGraw’s hat was, and wondered why they never put the top up on their convertible, even when it snowed. When I had one, I have to admit that I had the top down unless it was actually raining, but I would have drawn the line at snow.

When Rob came home, we all sat in the garden for a while and chatted in the sun before I headed home. If you’re wondering where Megan was, she was called in to work during the day on Friday. When I expressed dismay at her working so soon after finishing her 36 hours of night shifts on Thursday morning, she said it was “only for eight hours”.

Only?

On Saturday, Erica was working at a wedding, so Jessica came for a visit.

She was charmed by the balcony, and kept asking to go up there, despite the fact that there’s nothing on it. Jessica recommends that I get some lounge chairs and an umbrella for next summer, and if I can get Mark to move the wire that’s about a foot off the floor of the balcony, I just might follow her advice. We’ll have a stunning view of James’ junk collection from that vantage point.

We went to see if Mark’s daughters were home, but it turned out the entire family had decamped to the beach, so we played for a while on their playground, swinging on the swing, jumping on the trampoline, and giving Jessica rides on the tire swing zipline.

Back at my house, Jessica looked through my nail polish collection and selected my new favorite, Calypso (“it looks so good with my skin tone!”) and confided her ambition of being a spa scientist when she grows up.

Megan dropped by to say hello, and we all picked huckleberries, which reminded us of how much we all loved “Blueberries for Sal” and how at one point, it was the only book Jessica would have us read to her. I told Jessica that I learned how to read so I could read stories when Dad wasn’t around, but I always hid the books so he couldn’t catch me reading. In case he wouldn’t read to me anymore if he knew I could read by myself. As it happened, he read to me for the rest of his life.

We made muffins from the huckleberries, and in my responsible fashion, I let Jessica eat so many that she was pretty uninterested in dinner. I was concerned about this, and Jessica observed that “You’re the worrier in the family.” Even seven year olds can tell. Later, she asked me for a glass of milk, and I asked her about six times if she really meant it, the idea of voluntarily drinking milk being such a foreign (and disgusting) one.

We watched both Stuart Little movies, and found them charming. I’m sorry to report that Jessica was wide awake when her mother came to collect her sometime after 11:00. Jessica told her mother that it seemed like she was only at my house for seconds, words to gladden any baby-sitter’s heart.