“Hey, buddy,” Amanda whispered, brushing Jamie’s cheek. “It’s a little late for dinner, but how about a bottle?” Jamie stirred, his eyes opening to see it was nearly dark. “You alright? You slept a long time.”
Jamie sat up and pressed his palms into his eyes, the pressure in his sinuses pushing back. I almost never feel good after a nap, Jamie thought. “How long was I asleep?”
“Almost four hours. I guess you needed it, so I didn’t wake you.”
<...
2022-07-25 01:00:59 +0000 UTC
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Hi all! So excited to share this. The Best Babysitter in Town was such a hit, I decided it needed artwork.
Drawings are so expensive, so I commissioned a real-life diaper boy and his wife/mommy to recreate scenes.
I'll have the photos up by the end of the week, and I'll be updating the posts and the Amazon kindle version with pics too. Can't wait to share!
2022-07-24 21:41:47 +0000 UTC
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“Jamie!” Mel picked him up and gave him a hug. Jamie liked the way she smelled and felt. She intended just a quick hug, but Jamie saw no reason to let her go and wrapped his legs around her, and suddenly she was holding him and too nice to set him down. Amanda watched, knowing exactly what he was doing. She was just glad there was someone besides herself and her mom that Jamie didn’t just feel comfortable being held by but actually wanted to be held by. She thought it was cute, the move...
2022-07-24 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Daffy, you’re looking a little poofy pants.” Nana is just … like an older version of Mary sometimes. Whereas by contrast, i.e., difficult to see in the glare of the brilliant light I shine down across all my eyes survey, I am always me.
Except not exactly cuz if Mary said that, I’d have told her where she could go (nowhere; I like having her around, if only to have her reach the stuff on the top shelves). But in the case of Nana saying it (and I thought my shorts hid it well,...
2022-07-24 00:14:27 +0000 UTC
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When Rebecca asked Jamie if he wanted to stay home the next day, he said no. It wouldn’t help anything, and he felt he needed to see Ella again. The way they left it, the more time apart the harder it would probably be. Still, Jamie didn’t know quite how to connect with her, so he spent much of the morning in the reading corner, occasionally looking her way, and she did the same from the art corner. April eventually came over to check on Jamie.
“You’re wet. Wanna go take care of...
2022-07-23 20:24:09 +0000 UTC
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“Hey, Manda,” Becky said coming in the door.
“Hey, Mom. We got another problem on our hands. Or not a problem. Just another situation.”
Becky set her purse down, concerned it had to do with the incident at the park. “What’s wrong,” she said, her voice hard and fast.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.” They walked down the hall to his room. “He was subdued, to the say the least, when I picked him up, and he hasn’t said a word to me. We went to the massag...
2022-07-23 15:21:42 +0000 UTC
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“How was your day,” Amanda asked Jamie, seated on her hip and glad to be done with daycare for the day. She could tell by his expression that the answer wasn’t good. He looked gloomy, slumped over and not holding eye contact. He responded by burying his cheek in the space between her arm and her body, leaning against her and taking comfort in how soft she was. This part of being a little Jamie was coming to accept. He didn’t want to deal with his emotions, so he decided to be sullen a...
2022-07-21 01:59:02 +0000 UTC
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The next day at daycare, Jamie found Ella had beat him there and was already sitting with her sketch pad.
“Hey, Mr. International Incident,” she whispered.
It freaked Jamie out that she knew. “How could you tell?”
“I recognized your shoes.”
“Well, please keep it to yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I keep bigger secrets than this.” I know, Jamie thought.
He leaned over to look at her drawing. “You’re drawing that again?”
...
2022-07-18 13:23:59 +0000 UTC
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Rebecca was drying Jamie off after a bath, his second in less than half a day. She was being especially attentive.
“Mom, can we have a boring day today, please,” Jamie asked.
“Heh. Yeah, sweetie, we can do that. Just wanna stay home?”
“If we could, yeah.”
“Sure.” She carried him back into his room and set him on the changing table. She bent down and picked up the bunny outfit he’d discarded after Marsha had left yesterday. “Wanna wear this again,”...
2022-07-18 13:08:58 +0000 UTC
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“Daffy,” someone said, very rudely interrupting my nap even if they were sorta softly singing my nickname. And not just my nap, but the puppy’s too. Doesn’t Mary know the puppy is just a baby and needs her rest? Which is nothing like me, an adult who needs her rest because, well, you need a lot of sleep in your thirties, for some reason. Really.
“Hi,” I said.
“Come with me.”
“But I have a warm puppy on me.” True story. She was sleeping on me. I think she ...
2022-07-17 21:43:46 +0000 UTC
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“Walk or stroller?” Another perk of the stroller: he didn’t have to walk after eating so much food. He’d be comatose if he ate that much little food.
“Stroller,” he burped accidentally.
“Ha! Need a tummy rub?”
“That actually sounds like a horrible idea … urp.”
“Ha! Feel better?” She got him in and started walking toward the park. It really was a perfect day outside. One of those halfway days between summer and autumn when the temperature is pe...
2022-07-17 21:08:58 +0000 UTC
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Dear Cheryl,
I’m sorry I haven’t written more. The days are longer here, but somehow they pass quickly.
I’ve started calling Rebecca ‘Mom.’ I feel that way about her now. The three of us, we feel like a family. We will never be able to repay you for your role in bringing us together. You so perfectly matched us to one another.
Amanda remains my person. She’s my hero and confidante and advocate. She’s not perfect, but she’s mine,...
2022-07-14 12:39:50 +0000 UTC
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Back in the car, Amanda sat next to Jamie so she could talk to him. Becky turned the radio off so she could hear and be heard.
“How ya feeling, buddy?”
“Fine.” Really, he was. No breakthroughs or emotional epiphanies, nothing he didn’t know about himself already. Amanda looked skeptical. “Really. Nothing new today,” he assured her.
Amanda put her hand on his knee. “Alright. You know you don’t have to talk about what you discuss with Mary with anyone, even u...
2022-07-13 23:59:05 +0000 UTC
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“If it’s alright with you, I want to start with before you came here. That will help me understand your feelings about this world,” Mary said. She sat with tablet and stylus in hand. She was older than Rebecca, with rectangle glasses and the soft skin of a woman on the far side of middle age. Her voice to this point had been kind but business-like. She was practiced in the art of her science, at making her patients know what she needed from them and then gently coaxing it out.
Jam...
2022-07-10 17:23:53 +0000 UTC
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The placebo effect of kissing a booboo? I am an expert. Making up after that kiddo one took this kiddo’s toy? I am a veritable relationship counselor. Treating phobias? Nobody tackles fear of the dark and monsters under the bed as good as I do. Identity crisis management? Not so much.
Unless you’re talking about being a DC versus Marvel person, the kids I sit for don’t have identity crises. Some have issues, some have special needs, and kids can have those sorts of crises very you...
2022-07-10 16:25:08 +0000 UTC
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It’s a heccin good thing I’m independent and reliant on no one but myself, cuz otherwise when I rolled over in bed and didn’t find my comfort person, I would’ve been very upset. But nope, not me. I was merely curious where she went until my very pretty ears (so says the person who nibbles on them) and very good hearing (so says the same person who likes to bring that up when I’ve allegedly not been listening) detected a soft sound wafting up the stairs from our living room.
I ...
2022-07-08 14:12:14 +0000 UTC
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“Are you nervous,” I asked my Mary.
“A little. You?”
“O my gawd yes … I mean, a smidge … What? You’re looking at me funny again.”
“No particular reason.”
“Don’t roll your eyes while driving.”
“Why not,” she scoffed at me. Scoffing! At me! Ridiculous. That’s what she is.
“I dunno. My mom told me it’s dangerous.”
“When?”
“When she was teaching me how to drive … O, she just wanted me to stop rolling m...
2022-07-04 17:06:23 +0000 UTC
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“Nice to meet you, Jamie. You can call me Mary,” the therapist said.
“Nice to meet you as well, Mary.” Jamie was good at being polite and professional.
“If it’s alright with you, Amanda and your mom are going to wait in the outer room while we talk alone.”
“That’s fine.”
“See you soon, Jamie,” Becky said with a small wave as Mary closed the door behind them. Amanda flashed an encouraging smile.
Mary turned on a floor fan and pointed it at ...
2022-07-04 12:00:06 +0000 UTC
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It was lunchtime. Jamie knew Mom and Amanda would be picking him up from daycare soon for his first therapist appointment. He was having mixed feelings about it. To start with, they hadn’t asked him if he wanted to see a therapist. It was just announced. Jamie knew why they would have him see a therapist, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He didn’t volunteer how he felt about it, and they sensed it wasn’t something he wanted to be asked.
It wouldn’t have made a difference if he...
2022-07-03 20:01:01 +0000 UTC
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After taking another couple days thinking over her letter, Cheryl decided she couldn’t be so transparent and heavy, not in this letter. She feared causing Jamie any worry or stress might would take his mind out of his new reality, which she knew would likely set back his adjustment to Itali. She knew how hard it was, and making it harder just to unburden herself wouldn’t be fair or right. She revised her letter, telling the truth but not all of what she felt.
Dearest Jamie,...
2022-07-03 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“Wakey-wakey,” this annoying person said to me. For serious. Like, what the damn even?
“Did I ever tell you your morning perkiness is one of your worst traits,” I grumbled as I sat up in bed. Seriously one of her worst traits, leavened only by the way she looks in the morning, all hot and adoring and excited and stuff. It’s not her perkiness I begrudge; it’s the hour and the subtle guilt I feel at my inability to be as perky at that time.
“Just for that, I’m gonna ...
2022-07-02 19:38:27 +0000 UTC
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“Hey,” Jamie said.
“Hey back. How was your night,” Ella asked. She was sitting in the art corner with a sketch book and pencil.
“I learned my middle name is Patrick.”
“Uh O. Whuddya do?”
“What makes you think I did something?”
“Either you were looking at your arrival certificate, or you got called by your full name, and that only happens when you’re in trouble.”
“I climbed onto the kitchen counter.”
“That was dumb.”
2022-07-02 18:08:57 +0000 UTC
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“How was your day?”
“What?!” When they were up front, Jamie could never hear Becky or Amanda well from his carseat.
“HOW WAS YOUR DAY?”
Jamie wondered what the right response was: to include the part about his mini-meltdown or not. He appreciated that what happened at daycare stayed at daycare, so far as knew, though he wondered just how far that maxim went.
“Better.”
“Yeah?” That was the word Becky was hoping and not expecting to hear. “Tel...
2022-06-28 02:59:30 +0000 UTC
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I wondered if maybe by the end of the long weekend I’d stop being caught off guard by Jordy’s bare skin. He was dressed when he came back to his room, thank goodness, and I don’t know why I even worried for a moment he wouldn’t be, but he hadn’t put his shirt back on. Despite being the babysitter and having quite a bit of latitude with him, I didn’t feel comfortable giving him orders, nor did I feel comfortable saying anything that would make it obvious I was looking at his body. ...
2022-06-26 01:59:57 +0000 UTC
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Jamie still had an afternoon to get through after his nap. It felt good to wake up in a room with a closed door. Waking up on the floor surrounded by others reminded him too much of college nights we couldn’t remember. If he could do them over, at least now he’d take a nap mat. Yesterday’s attempt at waiting hadn’t gone so well, and today would be an even longer one, so Jamie did his business and waited for someone to come get him. April, he hoped.
Not to misunderstand their rel...
2022-06-21 12:32:10 +0000 UTC
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Gordy has younger siblings, I reminded myself when we got to the bathroom and saw bath toys on the rim of the tub. The guest room has an en suite bath, and given that Gordy is the oldest and his needs, you’d think he’d have that room, but I could also see Mrs. Rooney reserving the room for guests just to keep up appearances.
“How often do you have houseguests?”
“Not often. Why?”
“No reason.” He was one unhappy camper; I gave him a hug. Not a long one; just a ...
2022-06-19 23:59:48 +0000 UTC
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“Diaper, could you come here?”
Did I hear my Mary right?
“Diaper?”
What is she even … I hear footfalls.
“Diaper, I was calling for you,” Mary said as she stood in the doorway.
“Um, huh?”
“Diaper, you silly goose. Fine,” she said as she walked from the doorway to the basket of changing supplies under the side table, “I can get my Diaper into a new diaper right where she is.”
She sounds happy. I like ...
2022-06-18 21:35:01 +0000 UTC
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Dearest Jamie,
I’ve tried to think of all the reasons you haven’t written me in so long, and the reason I want to accept as the truth is every moment brings you so much happiness your hand cannot hold a pen. I want to believe that. We’re so far apart. I want to believe so many things, at least as many as I fear.
I received the report from Marsha’s home visit, and what relief it was to see she found you safe and loved and loving in turn. I needed to kn...
2022-06-18 21:13:40 +0000 UTC
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I’ll be okay if I can just live through the night. It’s happened before. But let me back up to explain.
“Why are you putting cocoa powder on vanilla ice cream,” the benevolent tyrant known as Mary asked me.
“Cuz I like it this way.”
I swear she looks at me like an anthropologist inspecting the strange ways of an uncontacted tribe sometimes. “Why not just have some chocolate ice cream?”
“This is better than chocolate ice cream.”
“Yeah,” she...
2022-06-14 22:56:40 +0000 UTC
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I dropped my bag off in the Rooneys’ guest room, which is nicer than the master bedroom in the house I grew up and still live in, and wondered quietly to myself whether the Rooneys having money made them so weird or if they’re be just as weird if they were average. And don’t call them eccentric just because they have money. They are weird.
I knocked on Gordy’s door but opened it as I did cuz I don’t know why. I looked to the bed but instead found him standing in the corner lik...
2022-06-12 20:28:00 +0000 UTC
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