This weekend, I had the privilege of babysitting for some friends from church. The mom is a director at a local theatre company, and I've been in a few of her plays. She's a recovering hippie, ex-dead head, and was in a Improv company in Chicago during her youth. I forget the names, but she worked with a few of the early Saturday Night Live-rs before they made their break. Her kids are gorgeous, and have been in a handful of children's plays and commericals.
Molly is eight, Noah is five, and August is eleven months old. I didn't get much of a chance to babysit for them while I was away at college, which made them sad as I am their favorite babysitter. I've a strong background in theatre, especially children's shows, which means I have the best games for dress-up and make-believe. I'm awesome with kids, too, as I have no indie cred to live up to and can therefore be a huge dork.
This story is actually from the last time I babysat them, and I think I may have said something about it on a previous blog, but it's worth the repeat.
While August was taking a nap, Molly, Noah, and I were playing in the other room. After a rousing game of Pirates (where Molly was a kidnapped princess who eventually became a Pirate Queen after displaying her kickass fighting skills against the mean Pirate Noah), we took a slight breather, and started deciding what else we should play.
Ninjas trying to steal some treasure? School in an earthquake? Deep Sea Divers trying to hide from a shark? Astronauts fighting evil aliens? Movie Stars stranded on an island?
Nope. Molly wanted to play house.
"August can be the baby, I can be the little sister, and you and Noah can be my parents."
"OK. Which one of us is your mom and which is the dad?" (Gender roles rarely made a difference in our games--take it from me, the best darn Goldilocks you'll ever see.)
"Bob" (With more than a hint of impatience) "Some families have two mommies or two daddies and it's perfectly normal. They're still a family."
The little brats totally had heaping bowls of ice cream for lunch that day.
