The Best Babysitter in Town Vol. 2 Ch. 7

I’m a morning person. I’m also a night owl. I get to be both of those things because I’m twenty, but not all my fellow 20-year-olds are so blessed. Like Gordy, who stumbled downstairs a little after eight rubbing his palms into his eyes and yawning, his hair in four different directions and still in his pajamas. If he did have a crush on me, it apparently was not the kind that would motivate a boy to clean himself up a little before I saw him. He could’ve been any four-year-old I’ve sat for overnight, except bigger, more tired, and slovenly.

But we all have those mornings (some of us just have them every day, that’s all). Me? I was showered, dressed, and had started making breakfast, real one with real cooking and everything.

“Good morning, Gordy.”

“G-yawwwwwn-orning.” He slumped into a kitchen chair.

“Did you stay up too late last night?” Maybe his stepmonster has a point about trying to keep him on a reasonable bedtime schedule. “Maybe I need to give you a bedtime tonight,” I joked. As usual, it went right over his head.

“I’m always like this in the morning.”

“Did the smell of bacon wake you up?”

“Smells good, but I think I’ll just have a pop tart.”

Like hell one of my charges would be eating a pop tart. I’m the best babysitter in town, doubly so for overnight sitting. My charges eat real food in the morning.

“Nice try, but you’re eating real food this morning.” Though that really wasn’t my call; he’s an adult. Just so easy with Gordy to forget I really shouldn’t boss him around.

His response? “Do I hafta (yawwwwn)?” Coming from Gordy, that’s practically backtalk (lol).

“You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t. I’m great at breakfast.” I eyed him for a moment. “Do you maybe wanna clean up a little, maybe change, while it finishes?”

“No. I’m fine.”

Um, really? “You sure?”

“Yeah. I always change after.”

“Your stepmom lets you eat at the table in last night’s diaper? Huh. Surprised she doesn’t have six rules about that.” So maybe I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning, but I can apparently be a little catty.

And Gordy? “Well, um, in case … doesn’t make sense to … until after breakfast.” I’m starting to get really curious what he’ll say if I just don’t say anything at all. Like, will he say anything? A complete sentence? Poor, embarrassed little guy.

“You’re the expert,” I said sunnily, trying to undo some of the cattiness and probably failing. Like, ‘hey, you’re the expert in wearing diapers. Feel better now?’ All I needed to say next to make it worse is ask if his butt still hurt from his spanking. Poor little spanked, diaper butt.

Or maybe I’m too critical of myself. You don’t get to be the best babysitter in town by going east on yourself, but I do tend to over analyze.

“So what are we doing today,” I asked him as I whisked pancake batter. Don’t whisk too much or you’ll get bready pancakes.

“I have to some chores to do,” Gordy replied. “Can I help you with anything?”

“How about cutting up some fruit? Do you always have this much food in the fridge? Could feed a football team.”

“Mom got a bunch of stuff for me. Us.”

“Maybe you’ll make something for me later.” The kiddos I sit for love being given a grown-up job, and they love doing something for me cuz it makes them feel like such good humans. Draw me a picture, sing me a song. This one kid who crushes so hard on me always offers to make popcorn cuz it’s the one thing he knows how to make, courtesy of the popcorn button on the microwave. So sweet.

“What chores,” I asked. “I’ll help.”

“I have to rake the leaves. It doesn’t take long.”

“It’ll take half as long if I help. We can do our homework right after and have the rest of the weekend to do anything we want. How does that sound?” Chores and homework: I make Saturday fun.

I like a sugar square as much as the next person, but I like a real breakfast too. They’re even better when someone else makes them, and once Gordy dug in, I don’t think he regretted forgoing the poptart. We talked about what to do with our day, and we both (naturally) came up with nothing. I felt pressured to come up with something fun (actual fun). Part of the job is keeping the kiddos entertained. Gordy is perfectly capable of entertaining himself; there wasn’t any reasons why we even needed to do something together, except I was staying there as a friend as well as babysitter. Wouldn’t make me a very good either of those things if I ignored him. And I didn’t want to ignore him; I like Gordy. He’s good company when he’s not being a basket case. I just didn’t have any good ideas yet.

I didn’t bring any yardwork clothes, but I didn’t mind raking leaves in my jeans and yesterday’s tee shirt. It hadn’t rained in a week, so my shoes wouldn’t even get muddy. I was dressed, in other words, and Gordy was still in his jammies. “You wanna go get dressed while I do the dishes?”

For some reason – no idea why – when I stay at other people’s houses, I do the dishes by hand. I had three pans, two spatulas, plates, utensils, and cups to wash, all to say it took more than a minute and Gordy had yet to reappear. I went upstairs and found him not in his room.

“Gordy?” No answer. Maybe he’d gotten started without me? I went downstairs, stuck my head in the garage, then looked out back. No Gordy.

I went back upstairs. Still not in his room. Back into the hallway I went, headed to the guest room, where I hoped I wouldn’t find Gordy; boy would’ve been in so much trouble if I caught him sneaking around in my room (but he’s never even been on a date, so I wouldn’t exactly blame him for being curious). I didn’t get to my room, though. I only got halfway, the hum of the fan on the other side of the closed bathroom door solving the mystery of the missing Gordy.

“Gordy,” I called through the door and knocked gently.

“Uh, yeah?”

My brother used to hide in the bathroom when it was time to do yardwork, which wouldn’t make any sense since all he needed to do to skip out on his chore was not tell me in the first place. “You’ve been in there a while. Everything okay?”

“… Yeah.”

O yeah, that sounded super certain. “Do you need any help?” Of course, I didn’t know what he was doing in there, but I thought I’d … Then I remembered. The note from his stepmom said he uses time voiding to avoid messy diapers. I hadn’t heard the term before, but I figured it out all by my lonesome from the context.

“No,” was Gordy’s more forceful reply. I say ‘more forceful’ because I don’t think Gordy has it in him to be forceful, but relative to his uncertain ‘yeah,’ it was forceful. And that uncertain yeah was, in retrospect, was probably more confused. Wonder what he imagines I was I was offering to help him do.

“Sorry. I’ll wait downstairs.” My turn to be embarrassed. I was so very happy he didn’t yes when I asked if he needed help. I don’t know how I could’ve helped, but everything about his condition is foreign to me. Lord knows what I may have been volunteering for. I was waiting a while, so I looked it up on my phone, and yeah, super glad Gordy didn’t need or accept my help.

Gordy reappeared dressed in sweatpants and a tee shirt and a pair of nasty shoes. What’s the first thing he said? “Sorry. Sometimes that takes a while.”

“Gordy, repeat after me: I will stop apologizing for stuff I didn’t do wrong.”

He blushed and chuckled, and I fixed him with my this-babysitter-means-business stare. That caught his attention. “I will stop apologizing for stuff I didn’t do wrong.”

“Good. Got a fresh diaper on?” That just popped out without me thinking about it, but I hoped the answer was yes. I mean, I didn’t need to ask. Gordy can take care of these things himself … but on the other hand, he sat in last night’s wet diaper all through breakfast, and his stepmom did mention his diaper area hygiene could be better. He does get rashes, but hell no on my watch. So maybe not the worst thing to check?

“Yes, of course,” he said a little tersely. I was proud of him for answering tersely! The boy needs more spunk.

“Sorry; just asking. You ready?”

The Rooney McMansion is not the kind squeezed onto small lots in old subdivisions, not is it the kind built on huge lots in young subdivisions. It’s on a big lot in an old subdivisions, which means many trees, most of them big. That hadn’t occurred to me when Gordy said he needed to rake the leaves. I walked right down their front path the day before, and the sheer amount of leaves did not register in my mind. No idea what constitutes a quick chore to Gordy, but too late to back out.

“How can I help,” I asked.

“Could you, uh, start in the flower beds? Just rake them into the grass. Or I can do that if you wanna use the mower.”

I’m not some dainty girl who’s never cut the grass before, but I prefer to be dressed specifically for that job, not do it in clothes I actually, ya know, wear.

“I’ll take the beds. You’re gonna cut the grass too?”

“It’s a mulching mower.”

“O.” I didn’t actually know what that meant or how it was relevant and was too bashful to ask because for some weird reason I’ll never understand I didn’t want Gordy to know I didn’t know what a mulching mower was.  We don’t learn if we don’t ask, except sometimes when wait and observe. Everywhere it went, it was like there had never been any leaves. We were still out there almost two hours, but I finished the beds before he finished the lawn. That left me sitting on their patio because it felt unfair to go inside even though I didn’t have anything else to do. Like, we’re a chore team. I had to stay, for some reason.

Don’t want to overanalyze this, but Gordy looked a little more manly pushing that mower, even if his sweatpants kept riding down and showing off the top of his diaper. So manly, but also dorky and cute. Not dorky because he wears diapers; just dorky because he kept pulling his pants up like a doof. I so very badly wanted to go tie the string in his sweats for him since he apparently didn’t do a good job, or didn’t bother, but I resisted the temptation. It would’ve only embarrassed him. Especially since he’d already mowed the front and given any of his neighbors or passersby who happened to look a glimpse, but they wouldn’t necessarily know what that white patch was from across their big yard. At least, I hoped so.

He disappeared around to the side yard. I heard the mower stop and waited for him, but he didn’t reappear. I figured he’d finished and put the mower away; I walked around to the garage and saw him in the yard with a rake instead. There was nothing to rake.

“Are you done,” I called to him.

“Um, almost. You can go in. I’ll be in soon.”

I still had my rake, and while I’m at best an average landscaper, the lawn needed no raking, and I didn’t leave anything in the beds, at least not anything worth raking out. Maybe the stepmonster is exacting; maybe Gordy OCDs over his chores; maybe he was doing something entirely reasonable but is just a silly twenty-year-old boy who doesn’t ask for help.

“I’ll help,” I said and started walking toward him. You’d have thought I’d thrown a hot coal at him the way he jumped back.

“Um, no thanks. I got it.”

Or maybe he’s hiding something. Don’t think you need to be the best babysitter in town to read those signals. Hard to believe Gordy was able to maintain the pull-up charade for two weeks; the boy has no subterfuge. That, or he just doesn’t around me; I must make him too twitterpated (ha!). I kept walking. It’s not thatbig a yard, so we’re talking like a hundred feet.

“Could you just stay there, please?”

I accidentally fell into my whatever-it-is-you-can-tell-me tone. “Gordy, what are you doing?” Twenty feet to go.

“Just … cleaning up.” Yeah, sure you are

. “I can help.” And four feet, where I stopped. And he shuffled backward. Yeah, hiding something.

“I-I got it. Go inside … Please?”

It was windy with just enough of a nip in the air that I’d gotten cold after I finished, but this is Gordy we’re talking about. Atmospheric conditions surely contributed to the shade of red he was, but I know a blushing Gordy when I see one (because I see one a lot when I’m babysitting). Backing away from me? Stuttering? Looking at the ground instead of at me?

“What’s the matter? You can tell me.”

“P-please, j-just …”

“I’m here to help you. Will you let me help?”

“I don’t need help. I j-just …”

I took a couple steps forward. From eight feet away, I smelled gasoline, cut grass, and dust on Gordy. From three feet, well.

I’m an experienced babysitter (and camp counselor!) I’ve had this conversation before. Usually it involved me getting down on their level, and because this conversation almost always happens with small kiddos, that means squatting all the way down on my ankles. Depending on the kiddo, I’ll brush a tear away (sometimes under the pretext of brushing their hair out of their eyes; I don’t wanna embarrass them anymore than they already are), hold their hands, or put my hand on their chin to gently turn their face toward me. Then I say, “Sweetie, did you have an accident? It’s okay if you did. You can tell me.”

I left out everything before the words with Gordy. Some parents and babysitters have a seriously harsh attitude toward potty accidents. Some, like me, don’t sweat it because everyone grows at their own pace (or has health conditions). And some are in the middle and make the kiddo actually answer that question, I guess to embarrass them just a little, like that’s a punishment. I absolutely hate that. Gordy didn’t answer, I didn’t need him to answer, and I wasn’t going to make him answer.

“It’s okay,” I said, stepping over to him and taking his hand. “Let’s go fix that.” We started walking back to the garage.

“I can do it myself,” he said quietly. I knew he could, but I also remembered what his stepmom wrote about needing to check back there to make sure he was doing a good job. That means he doesn’t always do a good job (hence the diaper rash, which he gets punished for by not being allowed to change his own diapers, which is why I got the privilege last time I sat for him). I surreptitiously glanced behind at his, well, behind. He didn’t have a diaper bulge or waddle when he started cutting the grass, but he definitely had some sag going and a little waddle. Barely; only the best babysitters (and daycare teachers and toddler moms) would’ve picked up on it. I wondered when it happened. Was that why he was standing in the yard? Or did it happen while he was mowing and he was hoping I’d go inside and not find out. I get why he tried to hide it, but he didn’t have to.

That said, can I also just say I had zero desire to change a dirty big boy diaper? In fact, I actively did not want to change his dirty big boy diaper. In fact, I don’t want to change any messy diapers of any size. But I do it because that’s part of being a babysitter, and I’m the best in town. Kinda felt obligated, plus with the whole check his bum thing from the stepmonster. Like, how does that work? Does she just periodically tell him to drop trou? Does she find some excuse to change him even when he’s allowed to do it himself? I wouldn’t put it past her to do a weekly inspection or something, but I also wouldn’t put it past her to put that in the note she left, if that was the case. Might as well change him. Not that it would get around that I didn’t change a messy diaper while on the job, but, ya know, I take pride in my job.

These are the things I was telling myself as I led him inside, along with, I can’t back out now; it would hurt his feelings. Or not. Or something?

I realized I was holding his hand and let it go; he doesn’t need to be led around by the hand. “Let’s hang these up,” I said. We hung up our rakes. “And let’s take these off.” We took off our shoes. I closed the garage door.

“I can do it,” he said again. By then, I had mentally committed myself. I would do this. Like it was the ultimate babysitter challenge and my pride wouldn’t let me back down. And maybe, just maybe, by doing it for him, Gordy would figure out he doesn’t need to be embarrassed with me. I really wanted him to just trust me implicitly. It makes babysitting easier when the kiddos do that, but this was more about friendship. He can trust me as a babysitter to help him when he needs help, and he can trust me as a friend to to help him when he needs help and to not look down on him ever.

“Well, it’ll take half as long if I help. Will you let me help? It’s what I’m here for.” He nodded, just barely, and looking at the floor instead of at me.

We went upstairs to his room, and I made a deliberate decision to switch from reassuring babysitter to no-biggie babysitter, i.e., just treat it like it’s normal, and it’ll be easier on everyone. Like, it’s just spilled milk; we’ll clean it up and go play; what do you wanna play next?

I don’t treat messy diapers or undie accidents like a big deal or even something to regret. Accidents happen; and if they’re still in diapers, well, that’s what diapers are for. If I didn’t treat it like a big deal to get upset over, maybe he’s stop being upset.

And ya know what else? Act confident, and you’ll be confident. What’s not to be confident about? A dirty diaper was perfectly normal for both of us. He’s not stranger to them; I change several a week. Just smaller and on infants and toddlers. What’s so different about it, really? I chose to decide there was nothing different about it.

This is the pep talk I was giving myself, and while it was a pep talk, often full of dubious cliches and bullcrap mantras, sometimes they’re true. You don’t change a baby’s diaper and be all sad about it like it ruined the whole evening; you make it fun because that makes it easier, mostly for the kiddo, but also for the grown-up. That’s a survival skill, or call it a coping mechanism, cuz if you have kids, you’re gonna change about 6,000 diapers (wonder how many Gordy has gone through; yikes).

You make it fun. You blow raspberries and dangle car keys and just try to keep ‘em from squirming away. Which I didn’t need to worry about with Gordy. I give him credit (silently, so as not to mortify him): he might have tried to hide that he had an accident from me, but once caught, he was very cooperative. Not that I expected him to; he’s not a toddler who wants to do everything himself. It's just that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he got huffy and stomped off to do it himself. That would’ve been fine by me; but instead of just going inside to deal with it, he was standing in the yard not dealing with because he’d rather I didn’t find out than have clean pants. Didn’t exactly scream out that he was gonna take charge of the situation, so I did.

This is me justifying myself after the fact. I’m not sure if I was babying him or being condescending. I didn’t mean to be. I just … saw a kiddo I was babysitting who needed help, so that’s what I did.

“Okay,” I said cheerfully when we got to his room, hoping it would rub off on him or least get him to lift his head up. “Let’s take these off first.” Funny, he could’ve done that himself, but just like when he gets a spanking, he kept his hands at his sides as I took his sweatpants off.

“Step out. We’ll run another load of laundry today. Might as well take these green socks off too. They were white when you got started; lift. We can wash your sheets and towels too if there’s nothing else.” I tossed his pants and socks toward the door, and he started shuffling to the changing table. “Hold your horses, buddy,” I said because I’m not good at being the casual, let’s-make-everything-fun babysitter just a little, apparently. I go all in without even meaning to; maybe one day I’ll acknowledge there are parts of my professional persona that isn’t so much my brand as me.

“Just wanna see what we’re dealing with,” I explained. I knew, obviously, what we were dealing with, and while I was trying to seem lighthearted and confident, I also wanted a sense of exactly what I was about to find in his diaper.

He was wet, but not wet enough that I would’ve changed him if he hadn’t number two’ed. “Turn around for me.” I looked at and felt the back of his diaper. Still white on the outside, and not that I’ve changed any other messy twenty-year-olds to have a frame of reference, but it didn’t feel like a disaster situation. Just a little saggy. Gordy kept blushing and held still, and I resisted the urge to praise him for it. I gave his butt a couple pats, the universal gesture for telling anyone in diapers just about everything. It’s like aloha but, ya know, with diapers. I think I was telling him, all done, changing time.

“Hop up.” I made small talk while I got things ready. “I thought the yard was gonna take a lot longer. Thank goodness for that mower.” I got a couple wipes out and laid out a fresh diaper, then put it away for later. “I think you need a shower after this.”

One thing I learned being a long-haired babysitter is you tie your hair up when changing messy diaper or you may end up desperately in need of a shower. I reached into my pocket for a scrunchy and found nothing. I always have a scrunchy in my pocket when I’m sitting for kids still in diapers. But Gordy is not a kid. “Hang tight. I’ll be right back.”

I wished he’d asked me where I was going. I wish he’d asked me or said anything. I don’t like it when he gets quiet. That’s what he does when he’s skipped right past embarrassed all the way to sad (usually cuz he’s feeling sorry for himself, though some of those times he has a right to), and I don’t like him sad. As I was walking back to his room, it occurred to me how much work it had been just to get him to average, let alone happy, in the two times I sat for him, and one of those times was still going on. What’s it take to make Gordy happy for one whole hour? Or just smile for an entire minute.

I was putting my hair up as I walked back in. “Just wanted to tie my hair up,” I explained. He had his arms across his chest and was looking away from the door. His changing table has stirrups, which sort of make it the opposite of changing a baby. When I change a baby on the floor, I usually sit down with my legs open and put them in between to make it easy to reach. With Gordy’s feet in those stirrups, he was the one with his legs open. Felt off somehow, but made changing him easier. I looked up changing adult diapers on YouTube, and I guess because I’m familiar with the kiddo method, it looked much harder and awkward, but it also made sense without the stirrups and a diaper-wearer able to participate in his change.

I tried to keep up my banter as I put a pair of gloves on. “Okay, we’ll be done in a jiff.” I tore open the tapes on his diaper (they’re so strong!), and lifted the front of it to let a little air in, but I left the diaper mostly over him in case he started peeing. I don’t know if people with Gordy’s problem do that. I just know I’ve made the mistake of not waiting and getting sprayed in the chest the moment the air touches a recently diapered peepee.

It was stinky, but not as stinky as I’d feared; only a little worse than when the diaper was closed. That was a major relief. I’d feared the worst.

“What homework do you have this weekend? I have,” I said as I opened the diaper the rest of the way, “m-math and chemistry.”

Huge kudos to me for only faltering a little bit when I saw just how big a mess a twenty-year-old makes. And it wasn’t even that big a mess! Or at least it didn’t seem like it when I felt the back of his diaper. But geez! Doesn’t feel likemeans nothing, apparently, when it comes to changing messy adult diapers. I had terrible premonition, should it ever come to pass, that does feel like a big mess would be calamity. A lesser babysitter would’ve struggled to remain composed.

Me? I was thinking of Gordy’s feelings, so as much as I wanted to cover my nose, look away, and say ew ew ew before getting down to business, I just cleaned him up instead.

“I’m not so good at math; Calculus II. I don’t even know why business majors need to take it. Maybe you can help me,” I said as I used the front of the diaper to clean up as much of it as a I could.

I remembered how I’d managed to wipe his bottom before (when it was blessedly just a wet diaper change). “Knees.” He put his arms behind his knees and lifted his butt for me. The first time he did that caught me by surprise, and I’m o so glad he waited for the instruction before doing it. I took the diaper out from under him and set it aside.

“What homework do you have? Maybe I can help on some of that,” I said as I wiped him. I got no response, so I stopped. “Gordy, what homework do you have? Gordy?”

I very seldom lose my patience. I didn’t lose my patience then, but I was right on the cusp. I put the dirty wipe in the diaper and stepped to the left where I could see Gordy’s face. He held his knees still (thank gawd because I wasn’t done) and looked at the wall. “Gordy, please look at me.” He turned toward me, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had tears in his eyes, but he didn’t.

“Am I making a big deal out of this,” I asked him. “Please answer me with words,” I added when he shook his head (the smallest head shake ever, naturally).

“No,” he replied quietly.

I had deployed the serious-babysitter tone to get his attention. I switched back my so-snap-out-of-it encouraging babysitter tone. “So stop moping! This isn’t your first dirty diaper; you’re not the first messy boy I’ve changed. Could we please skip the whole silent mode sad stuff? This is so not a big deal. Let’s not let it ruin our day.” I waited for a response. “Well?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, let out a short sigh, and answered, “I’ll try. Sorry.”

That apology, for once, felt appropriate. But if he later apologized for his accident, I was ready to let him have it good (probably tickling cuz I have no idea what else I could’ve done). No reason to apologize for an accident. I mean, is it even an accident if it happens in a diaper? It’s definitely not an on-purpose. It’s just a thing that happens and is expected. It’s … a happening. An occurrence. An incident? That seemed like the right word (or at least the best one unless I ever think of a better one).

“Thank you,” I said and got back to work. And the thing is, as much as I did not enjoy the task, there really was nothing about it that was a big deal. I was babysitting! Sometimes that means changing yucky diapers. It isn’t a big deal, and at least on my end of the changing table, acknowledging that made the task a little less unpleasant. I was mentally getting used to it, just like I’d once done when I started babysitting kiddos still in diapers eight years before then.

“So,” I repeated myself, “what homework do you have this weekend?”

“Just some reading for my history and English classes, and I have to get started on my project for my mechanical engineering course … I’ll help you with your calculus if you want. I took that last year.”

“I’d like that. Thank you … All done. You can put your legs down.”

I don’t know how many wipes it usually takes clean up a twenty-year-old’s dirty bum, but I felt like I’d just measurably contributed to the world’s landfill problem. I wondered if maybe I’d need fewer wipes as I got better at it, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to do this again. But if I did, it still wouldn’t be a big deal, not even something to regret. Comes with the job.

I balled up the diaper and dropped it into the chute on his changing table before he could say, “No!” He only got the ‘n’ out.

“What?” Like, what? What else to do with it?

“There are some disposal sacks for messy ones down by your feet. We put those in the outside trash.”

“O. Sorry.” That made wonderful sense. Having babysat for a non-negligible percentage of the families in three zip codes during my career, I can tell you that every nursery, no matter the diaper pail or genie or disposal sacks, smells at least a little bit like poopy diapers. Between the perfume on the diaper, the air freshener, and what little Jimmy and Janey can do to apple sauce, it’s just a unique scent. I realized just then that Gordy’s diapers didn’t have any perfume on them at all, and it wouldn’t be the worst idea.

“I’ll take that out while you're in the tub,” I offered.

He sat up and got down off his table. “Thanks. It’s the can around the side, not the one in the garage.”

He started toward the bathroom, and I followed. That boy butt definitely got spanked the day before, but it was looking mostly recovered. And clean as a whistle.

And now that he was cleaned up and down to just smelling like sweat and cut grass, well, I always liked that smell on a man. I once had a boyfriend who cut the grass at a golf course. Fun times.

And I’d definitely be keeping a scrunchy in my pocket whenever I sat for him from then on.