Today I was watching two four year old girls. The babysitting happened inside a toy store. They were both wearing pretty princess gowns, there was lots of satin and crinoline involved...
We were on our way out of the bathroom (I did a stellar job of removing and putting the dresses back on... "You're hurting me!"), when my cousin's daughter looked at me and said "Why do you live alone in Arizona?"
Her grandmother must've told her that.
"Um... I have a cat." (What? It works when my coworkers ask.)
"But no other people?"
"Right."
"Why do you live all by yourself in Arizona?"
"I wanted to go on an adventure. So I went to Arizona, and I'm having an adventure. I still get to come home and see my mom a lot." She thought hard about it and seemed to decide no follow-up questions were needed.
We ended up finding ourselves each a toy for $10 or less ("If there's one number before the dot, you can have it. If there are two or three numbers before the dot, that's too expensive."), and then I called to confirm that the grown-ups were nearly done doing their grown-up things.
We went outside and broke into the other child's tea set. Yes, that was me sitting on the ground with the two pretty princesses having tea and toast outside of the toy store in Covington Kentucky for an hour today. I did eventually remember to put coats on them when they started shivering.
Last night I was introduced to my sister's best friend from high school's boyfriend as "This is mary ann. She threw pancakes at me when I was little."
"How old were you?" [I recall doing no such thing, but I do believe that it happened.]
"I was probably nine or ten. Bean would've been seven or eight."
Shelly left today to go back to Oregon. I get the twin bed all to myself now...
