It’s been a really busy week. Every day has been work or school or watching Basilia or both. Yesterday I worked 8.5 hours, and walked about 2 miles (the walking bit is my own fault, for not learning how to drive at 16 like a normal person. Nevertheless, it was exhausting). Today I spent 6 or 7 hours hot gluing fake leaves to my brother’s Halloween costume. He’s… father nature or something. I would have told him to do it himself, if he weren’t so stressed about work lately. Car salesman is not the best career during times of economic hardship. Especially not luxury cars.
After all the time gluing leaves, I babysat Basilia. Sean and Gaetane went to a concert of some sort. I dressed Basilia up as the cat in the hat (she had an old kitty costume, and a proper hat. I mixed and matched), and took her trick or treating around the block. She had a lot of fun, and was really good about holding onto my hand (I think I lost circulation to one of my fingers). After a while, we seemed to be following some sort of script. Here’s how it went (keep in mind, the little one just turned two on the 9th):
Me: Wasn’t it nice of those people to give you candy? They didn’t have to do that, you know.
Bae: Yeah! Really nice!
Me: Now, what do you do when we get to the next house?
Bae: Ding dong! Tricker treat! Pretty costume! Thank you!
Me: Good job! And you’re doing such a good job walking down the street! You’re such a smart girl, you know that?
Bae: Yeah! Bae really smart!
Me: Are you having fun?
Bae: YEAH!
We went around the block and came home, mostly because I didn’t feel like letting her get tired half way and then having to carry her home in a costume. Sean was off work then, he and his friend were getting ready for the concert. His friend had to borrow a suit, because he was dressing up as John McCain. They were lamenting their inability to find a flag pin in time. The friend said they should stop at a gas station on the way, and he’d find one there.
As soon as Sean was out the door, Basilia turned into a brat. She screamed for candy, even though I’d been telling her all night how we’d go trick or treating, and then eat dinner, and then she could have a piece of candy (it’s usually easier to get kids to do things when they know how things are going to happen ahead of time). As soon as she calmed down, I told her that if she screamed again she’d have to have a little time out in her room until dinner was ready (I was in the process of making it at the time). She decided to test me. I put her in her crib, closed her bedroom door, and finished making dinner. It was her first real time out (though Gaetane’s been planning to start doing them for misbehavior recently). It lasted about 2 minutes, which is one minute per year of age. That was the guideline at all the daycares I’ve worked at. Afterwards I explained to her again why she’d been put there, gave her a hug, and gave her dinner. She was mostly good for the rest of the night.
I let her watch a movie for a little bit (A bunch of Eric Carle books put into animation. I don’t usually like letting kids I babysit watch TV, but it was only about 30 minutes. It was full of soft music and gentle voices. I thought it’d be good before bed), then I changed her diaper and gave her a bath. We actually did quite a lot of playing for bath time, and sang silly songs. She whined a bit about putting on jammies. “Bae wanna walk around a little bit,” she said. I told her that she wasn’t going to bed yet. We were going to read books first. I read her Puff the Magic Dragon, and something about a daddy bear looking for his baby. Then we said goodnight to all the rooms in the house, and I put her to bed. I left another book in the crib with her, and she sleeps with a little lamp on in her room. She can look at the book for a bit, and maybe hang out in her crib for a while tomorrow morning and look at the thing.
Overall, I was satisfied with how the evening went. Though she didn’t get to bed until 9:45 (Gaetane doesn’t like her up past 9:30). I was the one to put Bae down for her nap. It did not go well. Nobody else was home at the time (1:00 or so), and she still hasn’t learned that she can’t scream at me to get her way. I fed her lunch, changed her diaper, and put her down. She screamed for 1½ hours, mostly because I made the mistake of checking to make sure she was okay after the first ½ hour (she screamed even louder and angrier for 10 minutes after that). She finally fell asleep around 2:30, and then I let her sleep until 5 or so.
Work… work is slow, but I still had a pretty productive time yesterday. Cleaned the window display, scrubbed out the microwave, processed packages, tidied, deep-cleaned the back area of the store, threw away tons of expired and rotting food from the staff refrigerator, helped a woman pick out 8 pairs of legging and socks for her granddaughter, and cheerfully attempted to turn a grandmother to be into a loyal customer. Customer service isn’t difficult; you just have to be yourself… but a little more polite…
Then I’m closing tomorrow night. 2-10 PM. Sunday I’m on call 2-7, which is also closing. I work 5 days this coming week. Tomorrow I also have to iron my slacks, re blacken my shoes, and all that.
Other news… it turns out some of the books my brother was using to weigh down the dashboard of his car might actually be valuable. Gaetane’s mom brought them in, with an air of polite aggravation. I’ve been looking through them. They’re a bunch of early edition paperbacks of now-famous authors. There are several books of poetry. One of them is a bunch of Allen Ginsburg’s early stuff. Then there’s a Michael Moorcock book called The Time Dweller (I’ve been meaning to read him since I found out he influenced a couple of my favorite authors… though I’m not sure how “good” his work is. Haven’t read anything yet), and a decent copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which I’ve wanted to read ever since the Disney version came out and my mother explained to me in a calm, careful voice that no, the movie was not like the book. I vaguely remember being shown an old black-and white movie version, and being extremely frightened). There is an incredible collection of books in the basement. Thanks to my sister-in-law’s deceased bibliophile father.
And… and I finally managed to work on my graphic story again. It’s a retelling of the Persian fairy tale called The Melon Child. I drew, inked, and colored the entire first page a couple of nights ago. It was while listening to Anansi Boys on tape (yes, Melanie, I’ve read it at least 4 times… but it’s AMAZING on tape. Up until now, I’ve pictured Neil Gaiman’s Anansi as… well, as Paul Simon. So yeah. I was picturing an elderly trickster spider-god from the Caribbean as looking like an elderly Jewish man of Eastern European descent. Fantastic. It doesn’t get much worse than that. But in my defense, they’re both really short!)
I don’t feel like saying anything else now. I feel like going to bed. So… that’s life for tonight. And that’s Halloween… I’ll probably borrow Sean’s Halloween costume for earth day. Wear it to school or something. :)
Right now this is my mood:
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
amused
confused
sick
aggravated
sleepy