i won’t go into a lot of detail, but here’s the gist of it: he and i sat for a couple that prior to being entrusted with their toddler we had never met, and then we were subsequently subjected to said child’s complete distrust of us for the next four and a half hours all because i am an inherently nice person who, upon hearing a cry for help, volunteered to come to the rescue, knowing full well that the favour may never be returned, and accepting the inevitibleness of that only because i was getting paid.

— mind you, i was getting paid handsomely.

so this is how our night with “Tanner” went:

5:30 – 5:40, meet the parents, have them leave the room to go have the inevitable ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ discussion.
5:45 – 6:00, meet the baby, observe his adorable and angelic behaviour around said parental guidance units.
6:00, be abandoned by said parents.
6:02, have baby realize same feeling of abandonement.
6:02:30 – 6:40, listen to baby cry hysterically until he’s hiccuping and coughing, wondering if the bonus paid by the relatives was really, really worth this.
6:40 – 7:00, enjoy the quiet while the child succumbs to his exhuastion and sleeps, mistaking a cat nap for what was to be a night of quiet checking up occassionally and send the man out to get dinner.
6:55 – 7:45, hold the baby as he vacillates between giggles and screams, meanwhile attempting to keep dinner from getting cold and becoming part of my wardrobe.
8:00 – 10:30, finally, after over two hours mainly punctuated by cries of anguish and screams of displeasure, play amicably with child that burbles, drools, giggles and rambles buh-buh-buh sounds while secretly relishing the fact that mommy and daddy will soon have to deal with his exhausted state that we’re leaving him in, because after all, bedtime was more than three hours ago.

yes, it’s true, children are the very best birth control. and the very best children? they are always someone else’s.