Adventures in Babysitting

Aside from a terrible 80’s movie, it’s also how I spent my Sunday. I decided to start sitting for money again, a la teenagerdom, to help save money for our baby account for adoption or IVF in the future. (We decided the day after Christmas, when I was telling Alan about my fears about working with the state and their pathetic beaurocrazy and red tape, to save through our anniversary in November and make a decision between IVF and non-state adoption at that time.)

Because of my experience with high-functioning autism, I was hired by a lady who has a 10 year old girl with autism (we’ll call the girl F). F is a very sweet girl, and functions to some degree but probably doesn’t qualify for the “high-functioning” label. Very intelligent, but, while verbal, most of her speech is rote language, or repeating what she’s seen on tv or videos, or singing songs and such (in several languages actually). The first day I met her, F gasped and said, “You’re fat!” I just said, “You’re right!” These kids don’t have any concept of “polite”, so it’s impossible to be offended. Sunday was my first day babysitting F, and I was there pretty much all afternoon into the evening.

The day was pretty much completely uneventful. F spent the day in her room and her mom’s office, watching videos, playing the Wii, or playing on the computer. Her mom gives her one day a week to spend that way and this was that day. She did come out of her room a few times to plop herself on my lap, usually without warning, sometimes to sprawl out on the sofa on top of me.

Then she told me she was getting hungry, and I asked if she wanted a grilled cheese. She did. Her mom had shown me how to make F’s special grilled cheese, which is 2 slices of bread, one slice of cheese, put it in the Panini maker, and then slice diagonally into fourths. No problem. I take F her sandwich, she looks at it and says, “No! Where’s 10?” I said, “What’s 10?” She says, “10 number.” I said, “I’m sorry, F, I don’t know what 10 number means.” She says, “Where’s 5, 6, 7, 8?” Lightbulb! I figured out that she gets 2 sandwiches at a time, not just one, and that 2 sandwiches cut into fourths equals 8. 5, 6, 7, and 8. So, I made her another sandwich and was pretty darn proud of myself when she took both sandwiches back (all 8 pieces) happily. I’m not entirely sure what 10 number is, but if I had to guess, she probably added back in the 2 from 2 sandwiches. That’s what I always did on my math problems in school, too, and why I never got really good grades in simple math but can do complex calculus without blinking an eye.

That’s it. That was my whole adventure. (I did warn you I’m the world’s most boring person.)