“Good with Children”
My “niece” Addie (technically, my first cousin once removed) thinks I hung the moon. Her little sister Nolie has no doubt that I’m The Grim Reaper. The combination is interesting on the ego.
Last night I babysat for the two of them at their house while their parents went out. When I walked in the house I was greeted by three year-old Addie running down the stairs, jumping into my arms, looking straight into my eyes and declaring solemnly, “Aunt Nancy, I have missed you very, very much.” Then she pursed her little cherry lips and kissed me to underscore the point. I wasn’t prepared for how glorious this bounty of little girl-love would feel. I was instantly spellbound.
Nolie I was a little more prepared for, because I had given myself a pep talk of affirmative thinking in the car on the way over. “Nolie and I are going to have a great time tonight,” I reassured myself. “This is an opportunity to have a breakthrough with her and finally bond. At long last, we are going to have enough one on one time together to get on track. It will be fun.” I walked in positive, but also ready in case God’s Plan didn’t manifest right off.
When Eric brought Nolie down, though, pretty much the same thing happened that’s happened for the last eleven months of her life (which is her entire life): she took one look at me and knew for sure that Armageddon had finally arrived. The Anti-Christ had come to claim her! Oh, the screaming and crying, the utter recoil! I almost had to check the mirror to see if a warty green horn was growing out of my forehead and snakes were squirming from my hollow eye sockets. I’m not lying; every time one of her parents got her calmed down, she stole a peek at me and exploded anew.
I don’t know why this happens with Nolie (but never with Addie), and analyzing is probably fruitless. She’s never been fond of “strangers,” and even though I’ve seen a fair amount of her I can only think of once that she let me get close enough to touch her without wigging. At any rate, God’s Plan for Nolie and me [read: my agenda for God] didn’t materialize in the approximately 14 hours I spent with the girls. However, being merciful, the Divine did put Nolie under a sleeping spell about 15 minutes after I arrived when Eric put her down, and she remained conked out in her crib the whole time I was on duty. Alternately, this is simply what pure terror can do to a person.
In the morning when I woke up and joined the family in the living room, Nolie was quite surprised to find that the devil was still in the house, and even Jen finally had to admit that, yes, it does seem to be me that freaks her out more than anyone. Which doesn’t make it personal, because babies aren’t being personal when they hate you. Right.
Okay, so not sure where to go from there. More babysitting, apparently, so that Nolie can spend enough time with me awake to realize I’m not going to feed her to the coyotes or, I don’t know, hang her from the rafters for a little while–although maybe she deserves it for being so darn rude to company, to family! I’m looking forward to us getting through it because I do love the little one and always feel excited to see how she’s grown, etc. and I’m not used to family members rejecting me (well, not to my face). Thank goodness Addie’s on my team. We had a wonderful evening hanging out.
The whole being-reviled-by-an-innocent-baby thing (like babies are innocent!) brought on a memory of this horrific experience I had at sixteen. My mom probably remembers, because she is the only reason I lived through it. Our tennis club annually hosted a stop on the women’s pro tennis tour called at the time The Virginia Slims Tournament. That year I was pretty active in the whole thing, working as a ballgirl, meeting Martina and Chrissy, staring slack-jawed at Gabriela Sabatini, the unbelievablly gorgeous mooj-goddess, and wondering where all these short-haired, athletic women in the bleachers came from. Anyway, I don’t remember how I got hooked up with this afternoon gig babysitting the infant of a player on the tour. I believe the player’s name was [Something, Karen?] Valentine. The baby’s name was Little Asshole or something.
The baby girl was adorable, bubbly, and bright-eyed–until the second her mama drove off to play in her match. Then she turned into a screaming monster and did not stop blubbering and hollering for a good five hours (or what seemed like it). I wasn’t one of those teens who practically ran a babysitting corporation, but I’d successfully done it enough to believe I could handle the situation. I was dead wrong. I pretty much had to hand the hot pink possessed alien over to my mom when she came home, and Mom initially didn’t do a whole lot better, but as I recall we both walked around with her until she went slack from exhaustion. Or was it that Mom walked in with her maternal pro-powers and the baby immediately calmed down, while I went in my room and bawled? Probably the latter. At any rate, Ms. Valentine returned not long after that and Little Asshole was peacefully asleep like nothing had happened.
Clearly, this made an impact on my baby-related self-esteem or I wouldn’t remember it. I couldn’t take the pressure of feeling like maybe I didn’t have the right “maternal instincts,” wasn’t “good with children.” I remember feeling, in front of my own amazing mom, like I should have been doing a better job, proving something about the woman/mom I might someday be (my stuff, I realize). I think my mom at one point said something about the baby being able to “sense your anxiety,” which absolutely scared the crap out of me even worse. Now I had to act like the pro tennis player’s screaming baby in my arms didn’t bother me in the slightest? But the truth was that all I really wanted to do was not let one of those incredible mooj tennis players down, even if Ms. Valentine was ranked like 109th on the tour.
Ah, well. I’ve had successes since Ms. Valentine’s baby. My nephew Reilly seems to think I’m pretty cool, but maybe that’s only because I have an industrial orange flashlight and two black cats. And most days I think I don’t look like Medusa. And I really do think I’d like to have my own baby and would be pretty decent at parenting him/her. Let’s just hope I get off on a better foot than I have with Nolie.
