Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Neglection of the Flour Baby.

My son's babysitter came barreling through the front door five minutes after her start time, as usual.  I'm not sure if it's her chronic tardiness, the way she stomps around like an elephant, or her atrocious manner of speaking that drives me insane.  I suspect it's all of the above.

"Yo, they gave me my flower-baby today," she offered up, 100% unsolicited.

"Your what?"  I never know what she's talking about.

"My flower-baby.  You know, a flower-baby.  They make you take care of it so you know how to take care of a real baby.  See, here's a picture."

She thrust her phone in my face.  There was a picture of a sack of Gold Medal flour, dressed in infant clothes, with a photo of a baby taped to it.

"Oh, a flour-baby.  OK.  I see," I said, rapidly losing interest.

"Yo, they make us do craaaaazy stuff.  And we have to take real care of it, too.  If you leave it in your locker?  That's neglection.  If you break it?  That's death."

I interjected a few uh-huhs and mmm-hmms in the appropriate places.  She kept talking.

"Yoooo, but some teachers, they're cool, right?  If your baby has death, you get to write an obituary and you still pass.  But some are straight up bad, man, because if your baby gets death and you write the obituary, you still fail.  That's not right, right?  They shouldn't be able to fail you like that for breaking your baby."

I considered pointing out that the assignment was probably to not break her baby.  Instead, I asked her where her baby was at that moment.  She explained that she left it with a friend since she didn't want to bring it to work.  I considered pointing out that her job is to babysit an actual child, but figured she wouldn't make the connection.

"Yo, so, like, maybe I'll bring it tomorrow.  But, like, that thing is legit heavy, so I'm all like whoa."  She shook her arms for dramatic effect.

I decided that was as good a time as any to get back to work and let her get to taking care of my son.

The next day, she bolted through my front door, five minutes late of course, with Flour-Baby in arms.  She complained a bit about how hard it was to take care of a fake child.  She figured I didn't really understand since I didn't have to do this assignment in high school.  I nodded in sarcastic agreement.  She didn't get it.

Once her shift was over, she went home.  It wasn't until I was serving my son dinner that I noticed someone looking at me.  It was Flour-Baby, sitting in Nathan's chair in my living room.

I had half a mind to call her teacher to report this... neglection.


Poor, poor neglected Flour-Baby.




Linking up with Yeah Write, my straight up legit favorite writing community.

Edited to add:  This post won crowd favorite AND the jury prize this week.  Thank you everyone who enjoyed and voted!

50 comments:

  1. Oy. My sister had an electronic version that spat a tape back showing that you had left it crying for so long, that it's body had reached a certain temperature, and so on. You could kill it by shaking it. She left it in my care. I shook the hell out of it and left it on the front porch to die. Please note - no actual infants were harmed in the writing of this response, and I somehow later raised two real babies of my own without shaking either or leaving them outside for more than a minute ;)

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    1. I remember seeing kids on TV having to do projects like this and I was so jealous. I had it in my head I wanted to have babies very young. I ended up waiting until I was 30. I wonder if anything would have changed if I had a sack of flour or an electronic crying thing. :)

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  2. This is cracking me up. I love how you drew your babysitter though I am not sure how much I am supposed to like her? I want to picture your son with Mary Poppins instead. A Mary Poppins who can pull Angry Birds out of her carpet bag.

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    1. She is actually quite good with him and he is happy, though she's no Mary Poppins! My issue with her is 95% teen-ness related. I probably should talk to her about the lateness rather than passively agressively blog about it, but... Her grammar and use of words like legit make me cringe.

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  3. Neglection-I love it!

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    1. I know! She said it like 100 times and I feel like a jerk correcting her, but ugh!

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  4. Now that is something. I remember having a similar assignment in high school with an egg. Are you considering adoption of Flour-Baby? I think he/she would be much better off.

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    1. I'm not going to adopt Flour-Baby. I wouldn't want to break it and give it death.

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  5. so entertained and amused by this story...neglection - hysterical. although i am a little afraid of your babysitter... maybe you should wait on her grade before she sits the next time. haha

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    1. Luckily I'm always home when she's here. She does take good care of Nathan, so I'm happy.

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  6. So, so funny! Neglection is my favorite new word, and I am in LOVE with the line: "If your baby has death. . ."

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  7. Ha! Sounds like you don't have a whole lot of trust in her abilities. Maybe you can get Super Nanny to pay you a visit instead?

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    1. I trust her to hang out with my 6 year old while I work on another floor. Alone with a baby? Probably not. Thankfully I don't need her for that.

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  8. OMG I was dying when I read this. The "yo" and "legit" just cracked me up. I liked neglection and death as well. We had eggs in middle school that were our babies and we had to carry them around in little baskets. I named mine Ashley because I wanted my kids to be named Ashley and Anthony. LOL...Not sure how an egg is even CLOSE to having a child, but it was entertaining nonetheless to see guys walking around school with their eggs. :)

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    1. We never had to do anything like that in school, even though I really wanted to. I probably would have named mine Tad.

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  9. Please tell me you have a dog and he ate one of flour baby's legs... Can you tell I live in a house surrounded by teens? I have no mercy.

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    1. Sadly, I have no dog. I called her and she picked up Flour-Baby about an hour or so later. I am truly frightened of life with teens though.

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  10. Hahaha neglection. Looks like girlfriend needs some English classes along with whatever class requires high school students to carry around "flour babies." This made me think of one of the Baby-Sitters Club books where they had to pair up into couples and tend to an egg baby for a week. I'm pretty sure that one of the couples lost their egg baby, but I can't remember whether they were allowed to pass the class. Who comes up with this kind of thing?

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    1. I remember the BSC series, but I didn't read a lot of them. I don't remember that one. I don't really see that the exercise is all that useful. Other than always having to have it with you, it's nothing like an actual baby (except that some babies are legit heavy, yo).

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  11. The last line of the post is awesome and so it this one - "They shouldn't be able to fail you like that for breaking your baby." I literally rolled on my bed laughing after reading that. Hey, but I am a babysitter right NOW and your post made me super self-conscious. What if the mom of the kids, I babysit, thinks I am weird because I just don't talk to her! Your post will probably work as a set of guidelines when I go to work next.
    And very thankfully at school I didn't have a thing like this.

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    1. I didn't mean to make you self-conscious! This girl just talks like a teenager. Hopefully a nice dose of college will do her some good. I'm sure she'll be just fine and I'm sure you are too.

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  12. Report it!!! Neglection is my new favorite word.

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    1. I wonder if the school officials read this blog...

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  13. This. was. AWESOME. Like a legit awesome post, yo.

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  14. HA! My favorite line: "Yo, so, like, maybe I'll bring it tomorrow. But, like, that thing is legit heavy, so I'm all like whoa."

    I think she might get an A for having the foresight to leave flour-baby with you.

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    1. I could barely stop myself from laughing at her. Actually that happens most days.

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  15. Love it! Neglection, yooo! Dude, your son is gonna have some vocabulary! It kills me, you CANNOT make a youngin understand. I know I didn't get it! Loved this post!

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    1. I don't remember what I used to say that drove adults crazy except "like" but this girl is about 85% slang. I'm sure I didn't get it back then either!

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  16. Too funny, and great voice, yo. :)

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  17. I am so glad to read your comments because I must confess I was thinking what is Michelle doing with this bozo baby sitter? BUt it seems like she is great with a real kid...no neglection there...UGH...what a word butcher.

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    1. Definitely no neglection going on here. Really I needed someone to hang out with my son for a little while afternoon so I can work. She plays whatever he wants, he makes her run around outside and up and down the stairs getting toys, he makes her color, and she does it all while they laugh all afternoon. As long as she's not talking to me, I have no complaints.

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  18. Yooooo Michelle, this is straight up funny! I snorted. Is your babysitter Nikki Minaj? I'm afraid for you. lol The dialogue is just too good. Excellent, excellent post. I used to work with some teens who had to do the electronic baby doll thing. They'd leave them in the break room next to the coffee pot. I think they probably would've ended up writing obits.

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    1. :) Glad you enjoyed. I wonder if they'd still get to pass if they wrote the obituaries though. Also, I hadn't thought about the Nikki Minaj thing, but now that you mention it...

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  19. That was a riot! How funny that she never caught the connection that she was babysitting for you and yet, complaining about taking care of the flour baby.

    And I'm guessing you can't turn her into the school for her neglection when she left the baby at your house :)

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    1. At least she left it at a loving home and not in her locker!

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  20. Michelle, this is my favorite post of the week - maybe ever! I've thought about it several times over the past couple of days, and I crack up every time. My week has been emotionally challenging, so thanks for the laughter!

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  21. Haha! YOU NEED A NEW BABYSITTER!
    And also, that was hilarious.

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    1. We're only keeping her until the end of June, so I think I can stick it out :)

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  22. In my day, we used eggs, not flour. It was much easier to keep an egg safe. I named mine Brunswick.

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    1. Aw, Brunswick! I think an egg would be better too since it is legit not heavy.

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  23. Oh. My. Gosh. Did this ever make you want a new babysitter? :)

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    1. For a few hours a week until the end of June I can take it. If it was an indefinite engagement, that'd be another story.

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  24. I'm sure flour-baby enjoyed his (her?) stay with you. He certainly didn't catch death, although he might make a fine cake.

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    1. Yeah, I just let him sit in a chair until she got back to claim him. He's actually the only person in the house who got to sit down and rest that night, so I think he had a great time.

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