Proud Auntie pretends to be a parent, also known as babysitting
This Saturday, I watched my niece, known here affectionately as Smoochers, from about 3:30 p.m. until bedtime (just before 8 p.m.). I’m a card-carrying Proud Auntie, and the chance to spend a few uninterrupted hours with her was too good to resist. It was also a perfect opportunity to play “Pretend Parent”—a game non-breeders who are considering maybe one-day possibly having spawn of their own like to play with other people’s children. 3:30. On the nursery floor. Smoochers started crawling earlier this week, so we made a game of putting her favorite toys in different corners of the nursery. She crawled over to the drum—Bam! Bam! Bam!—and then crawled over to the inchworm that sings and wiggles, and then crawled over the to the toy that shoots colored balls out of the top and plays music. Everything a child owns seems to either make music, light up, or move. Or all 3. After about a half-hour of crawling, clapping, singing, and wiggling, I was tired. Like, bone-tired. I was out prett...