Babysitting - Focus on eating - Poem on Bad Dreams

  Was outside in the dark eating ice cream

I could barely see the chocolate fudge sundae in the darkness.

Was leaning against Scott's car totally focused on the flavor of the sundae - I added peanuts - and I was in total ecstasy, when a man passed by, walking swiftly and wearing headsets.

I was taken by surprise.

Jeez! I said, stepping backwards.

What dyou think? Should he have warned me?

Of course. Hello, he could have said.  I was furious. And walked back and forth until I got my equilibrium back.

Then I mounted my bike and rode for 25 mins while watching my fave news program

NHK

Sugar is 176. Not great but not terrible either.

Later on, while watching a Josh Grabar concert which dazzles us with his amazing voice, I realize.... I'm low.

***

I go over Dan's around 12:30 in order to babysit. He's got a doctor's appt.

Dan lets me inside. Apparently they keep their door locked all the time.

The kids are at the kitchen table, eating and interacting with their iPads.

Max, 3, gives me a beatific smile when he sees me. Grace, age 6 in 12 days, is engrossed but manages to grin at me.

I show Max my salad and name the ingredients. .

Dyou like black olives, I ask.

YUCK!!!! He yells back.

I ask him briefly about his love of moons.

I only like crescent moons, he says. 

We're discussing something and we need a map. We repair to Grace's bedroom where a map is hung on the wall.

We can't remember what to look up.

We're about to lie on Grace's bed when she orders us to take off our shoes. 


Isn't it comfortable, she asks.

Very.

Max wants to see where Daddy's car is parked so he can watch it drive off to the doctor. Then he wants to see where my car is.

Max picks a book called Yellow for me to read.

  This may be it. He tells me to start reading at the back. He - and I - find the words beautiful. Yellow is a happy color, he says.

Bees are stinging in the book.. I direct a chorus where we all BUZZ like bees. Max really gets into it and buzzes really loudly. Grace looks on like an unnerved mother.

We talk about yellow scrambled eggs.

My mom, she sez, makes the BEST scrambled eggs in the world.

These are MY scrambled eggs made with two eggs, mushrooms, onions, and kale/spinach.

I had a late b'fast as I had to go get my blood work for my diabetes doc and had to fast. I was so nervous fasting and not drinking that I had a dreadful nite's sleep.

Here's a FB poem I wrote this am. BTW, the online lit mag Twisted Sister is publishing four of my FB poems.

I thanked them - this was a couple hrs ago - and sent them the pic of the sundae above.

At our support group
last night we talked about
dreams. Bad ones. Nightmares.
Nightmare on Elm Streets,
no less. I, as one of the
rarely-remember-my-dreams
writhed on my bed last
night, Andromeda tied
to the rock. A fierce
smoking-pot headache
pounded at my temples
trying to jump out.

In the morning
all was calm as I
entered the delightful
oddness of my everyday
life.

I will never buy this sundae again. Not very much flavor. Was speaking to Judy Dz who said Kroger's makes a double vanilla sundae that is spectacular.

Grace is adamant, as she should be, about closing her bedroom door quickly. At a birthday party at the aquarium, her gift souvenir was a small plastic fish bowl with exactly one fish inside.

Esmeralda swum sluggishly in the murky water. Is she dying a slow lonesome death?

Grace is careful not to feed her/him too much, once a day.

Her fear is that one of the 3 cats will eat the poor dear.

Did you ever read The Cat and the  Hat?

Max looks out the window.

Daddy's home, he sez.

You're kidding, I say, and listen from Grace;s BR for the sound of a deep voice.

I ask Max what the different is between Mommy and Daddy's voices. I delight in asking these socratic questions, one of which is, Why, Max, should you NOT jump on the bed.

Daddy IS home, indeed.

Let's hide, I say. Let's pretend that Max is lost and we can't find him.

Dyou know how long Max can remain in one position? Less than two seconds. And how long can he remain quiet? Same thing.

So we don't get to play that game.

Bubby, can you please put on my Crocs? he asks.

Max is a please and thank-you man.

I thank him for his good manners.

After he's properly Croc'd and we go downstairs, he sez, Bubby, can you get me a cheese and crackers?

With great delight, I do.

He asks me to unwrap an entire packet and eats four of em

I hold out my hand and he puts the wrapper in it, then I toss it into the Recyclables.

That's the wrong one, Bubby, he says. It goes in the Trash, not the recyclables.

Meanwhile he and I sip on our fave bev - water. Max sips from his Ninja Poopie cup.

Grace drinks her milk and says she needs to be careful bc she always spills it.

Meow! Meow! sez Blank.