About children. And other things.

So this has been a busy few days. Where to start?

Oh. Some rat bastard busted out one of the windows on my car on Thursday night. Cost me $165 to get it replaced, which I couldn't get done until this morning thanks to me not discovering this problem until the middle of the afternoon on Friday.

And so that meant that on FRIDAY night, some other fucker noticed my window was ... er, missing ... and broke into my car again. As had the rat bastard from the previous night, the fucker rifled through the contents of my glove compartment, the map wells in the doors and the storage under the armrest.

Here's the kicker: I know the car was broken into for the purposes of theiving. Shit was thrown everywhere. BUT in a world where these things happen just for the possibility of spare change -- or even, the jackpot of a toll-road stash -- the ONE PLACE where I keep such things (and is full of lots of silver coins) was untouched. Guess the matte finish of its sliding black cover was simply invisible in the dark to those constricted meth-head eyes.

Too bad, suckas!

So on Saturday night, I had my first ... uh ... "employment" in a year. I watched S2's two lovely daughters while she and her J-Boy went out for a 20-year high school reunion. (As hired help, I dare not speak of the condition in which at least one of them returned. A-hem....)

This was an interesting little episode. I had a couple nights earlier spent two nights at the beach with S2 and her children, Getting To Yes and Little Pea, who are 6 and 3, respectively. That whole beach visit turned out to be helpful for several reasons, one of which is that I got to witness the bedtime routine and know what mom's doing (and, more specifically, because kids ARE kids, what mom's *not* doing). I'm never fond of being played for a sucker.

The Little Pea and I get along quite nicely. For some reason, I connect with itty-bitty kids who mainly like to giggle. I think this is because I giggle back at them. That M.O. doesn't help much when she's upset, but ... again, I've seen what S2 does when Little Pea's upset, and I play it a bit like wash, rinse, repeat. (Or, as I put it on Saturday night: What would Jesus do?)

When it comes to Getting To Yes (so named because she's a skilled negotiator), I used to think that she didn't like me very much. I got a wary eye from her for a while. But I think now that it's more likely she's just discerning. (Anyone who likes me is discerning. Those who don't have very bad taste.)

GTY and I had some fun down at the beach. We played in the surf together -- it's some COLD water up this way, man! -- and I had a delightful time. I was thinking, mainly, that what's cool about kids -- especially in that 6, 7, 8 range -- is that they're curious and capable of digesting more-complex information, but they're not so jaded as to think you can't tell them anything new. They're also not so sullen and hormonal yet that they refuse to have fun even when they're having fun.

When each wave came crashing in, I held onto GTY's hands while the water swept her off her feet. She looked like she was having a blast, and, as a consequence, I had a total blast myself. Also, it got me nearly chest deep in that absurdly cold water, so that, when we finally were out and about to dry off, S2 said, "A couple more days here, and I would've had your head under out there, swimming."

No way, I told her, wondering how long my legs would remain numb. I can't imagine swimming in that.

S2 gave me some kind of look. I don't know what it was. Perhaps she was thinking (as I superimpose my Texan vernacular on her), "Chicken shit." Whatever the case, suddenly I heard myself say, Dare me?

Well, look here people: This is an insider tip. UCM pretty much never turns down a dare. When UCM says something stupid like, Dare me? she may instantly regret it, but she'll probably also do it.

S2 didn't know that, of course. But goddamn her, she was all, "Yeah, get in there!"

So yours truely walked out into that frigid surf and not being able to figure out exactly how to put her face in water that cold, turned into a total DUMB ASS and plopped herself down with her face facing INTO the wave, thus getting a saline nasal enema pronto pronto! Not to mention so much damn sand in every crevass known to ... woman ... that it was two days before any midgets could march into the bath and announce, "This house is clean."

But I digress.

So the day after we were playing in the surf, GTY made me, of all things, a friendship bracelet. I thought that was just peachy. She's a sweet kid, and I heard Sally Fields somewhere there in the background of my grey matter saying, You like me. You really like me!

And thus made a peculiar leap in logic: Now, she'll be nice to me when I baby-sit her.

So the great thing about GTY and Little Pea is that I don't think they would actually be *bad* to a babysitter. Just coy. Because what kid doesn't relish having someone who's *not* mom or dad around for the night, someone on whom to try out the beta versions of whatever bedtime stalling tactics have been dreamed up recently?

All I can figure is that I got off lucky. But then, S2 told me to put them to bed "sometime between 8 and 9," which thanks to me feeding them bowls of cereal at about 9 o'clock -- they said they were hungry! -- did not exactly happen.

But I did make sure they brushed their teeth. And when they tried to tell me they sleep in their "street clothes," instead of jammies, I wasn't falling for it. I said, If that's so, why did your mother pack like a DOZEN sets of pajamas for you to take to the beach?

And then I read to them. I can skip! I can skip! I like to skip all the time! GTY got something more intelligent. A couple of chapters about a kid who demonstrates her hook shot with a basketball during a fire drill, only to hit the principal in the head and knock off his toupee. A delightful read that allowed me to answer all sorts of questions: "What's a hook shot?" That's where you throw the ball with one of those hook hands, like Captain Hook has. (blank stares.) "What's a toupee?" Oh, that's how a man compensates for his smooth pate. "Pate? What's that?" You know, the thing you eat off. And so I'm immediately corrected by the little one, "pWAte!"

Heh. I love kids.

And so I tuck them in with the nightlight on, give them each a kiss on the forehead and wish them sweet dreams. And I go downstairs and think, GOOD GOD! What was I THINKING, wanting one of those?! Even the good ones are a LOT of work!

This is when it occurs to me: I really do like children. For a long time, I've been thinking that I don't, but that's never been true. It's just been ... OK ... I don't want the responsibility.

Raising a decent human being, especially in this day and society, is not an easy task. S2 and J-Boy have daughters who are loving and complicated and intense and incredibly sweet -- not to mention cute as bugs. But they are also the products of a very involved, full-time mom who doesn't let them watch much television, feeds them a really healthy diet for the most part, engages them in all sorts of activities, spends a lot of time and energy teaching them how to communicate with each other (and they do so in ways many adults I know could benefit from doing) and makes sure they get a lot of exercise.

In other words ... it's a lot of EFFORT.

I find it a bit of work to ensure my dog gets adequate exercise in his twice or three-times daily walks. I want to stop at the donut shop along the way. I like to leave my dog unattended at home for hours on end, knowing he can hold it and that if I've exercised him enough earlier in the day, all he's doing is sleeping anyway.

So when I think of that blog entry the other week about my biological clock... no, that's not it. What interests me about kids is their energy and how much fun it can be to play with them and how much they seem to love it when adults "stoop to their level." And I also love how they engage with the world, their present-moment powers.

But I also love my life without children. The one where I stay up late, wake up later, shower slowly, take the pup to the coffeehouse, get a soy au lait and sit at an outdoor table where we (me and the pup) watch the passersby. The one where I get to see adult movies -- not talking porn here (though there's nothing wrong with that, either), just you know, like DRAMAS or Margaret Cho standup-- and don't have to worry about the content. The one where I pay for my own college tuition without having to worry about anyone else's 15 years down the road.

So I figured it out. I probably shouldn't be anyone's mom. No crying sack of blood and snot should emerge from these here loins. But someone's doting, playful, goofy aunt? Now that's my kind of gig.

Funny thing is, with three siblings -- two of whom are still living -- there has been no offspring, and all signs are that there *never* will be, either. In some respects, it's a pity. I have superb auntie talents which may never find expression.

Well, the upside is that, in the finest single-childless-female fashion, I've gone off and bought myself some sweet snorkeling gear for my upcoming trip to Hawaii. It's even got some style to it. The woman helping me looked at the white snorkle I selected to go with my white and blue mask and said, "Now, *that* is sexy." I hope this doesn't mean a turtle will try to mate with me....

In Hawaii, I have a cousin who's just turned 1, but I hear he's already walking. Heh. I wonder if he likes to be tickled?