Monday, February 18, 2008

I have a kid

Just one. An only child.

This makes me an anomaly here in the armpit of Texas where families with four, five or six kids aren't unusual (and yes, those are usually spread between at least 2 fathers) - I've met lots of women who started having kids at 15 or so.

There are times when I'm treated differently because my uterus doesn't have a revolving door, I've had women make that sad clucking noise when I say that we're fine with one and don't really have any immediate plans for more.

Except... don't tell anyone, but sometimes I think that it might be nice to have another one, you know? So my kid isn't lonely, so we have that little family unit thing.

Yesterday, the mother of a friend of my kid called and asked if we could watch her kid for the day (school was out for the day, but she had to work and didn't have any more vacation time). I said yes because I figured that my kid and her kid could keep each other busy and I kind of like this mom (we could almost be friends save for the fact that she describes herself as "pretty religious"*) and because that also means that she'll owe us a babysitting time.

So, she drops him off at my house around 8AM, we putter around the house for about an hour, go to the local aquarium, stop at Burger King, then come home to watch some DVDs. Sometime between puttering around the house and going to the aquarium, though, my patience was gone and I was about ready to toss the kid into the shark tank.

He's not a bad kid, really, but he's mildly autistic, so he kind of zones out and wanders off sometimes. (My kid is a total Momma's boy who sticks to me like glue - which makes it much easier to keep track of him) And because of the different ways the other kid communicates (or doesn't), it was frustrating the hell out of my kid and the afternoon ended with my kid watching the CSI marathon with my husband and I and his friend playing by himself in the bedroom.

And when the other kid's father finally comes by to get him, our whole house breathed a sigh of relief that it was just the three of us again. And I felt really lucky to have my terribly healthy and kind of goofy only child. I don't know that I could handle any more than this on a full time basis.


* "pretty religious" is one of the phrases, along with "I never watch tv", "sometimes I forget to eat", "I LOVE Nascar" and "Crocs are just SO comfortable" that automatically drop the speaker from my pool of potential friends.

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting