Growing up in Walla Walla, I did a lot of babysitting. Mostly for people in my neighborhood. I had a number of regular families and I was more or less steadily employed on Friday and Saturday nights and once in a while during the week but my parents weren't too keen on that. You know, because those were school nights and I had homework to do.

Babysitting was a pretty good gig as far as jobs go. First you get to play with kids--you can run around and chase them, you can build things with legos, you can play with dolls, you can play hide and seek, read books to them, and if you're lucky maybe you can even get the kids to sing songs. Sure, might also have too change dippers, deal with crying kids and scraped knees, feed them dinner, brush their teeth and put them to bed but all in all I thought it was always more fun than less fun so I was happy to babysit.

I also didn't mind picking up toys or putting dishes away after dinner. Parents like this and I liked babysitting and being paid for it.

Anyhow, I haven't thought about this in ages and I am not sure that I would have but last night my MoM got a call to see if she could babysit. I am apparently no longer on the babysitting circuit. Then again, I do live in Bulgaria

My MoM said yes because Baby A. is her favorite little baby. Well at least until she gets some grandbabies but that doesn't seem to be happening anytime too soon.

Baby A. came over about 6pm. She went swimming. She likes that a lot.<em> A lot</em>. She played with a bucket of toys endlessly. (Yes, my MoM has a bucket of toys especially for Baby A. to play with when she comes over.) She climbed the stairs again and again. For the record going up was easier than going down. She ate dinner. She likes grapes better than green beans. (Me too.)

She played a little bit more. She drank some water out of a cup without a lid. Then her playing began to slow down. We went inside, read some books and then MoM put her down to sleep. She cried a little bit but it wasn't heartfelt.

Then dAd called the house phone from his cellphone in the basement, you know, to let me know that the Big Foot hunting program was on tv. Gesh dAd.