The first time I babysit for my siblings, I’m twelve years old. I’m a little nervous because there are five of them now that my newest brother, Dana, has arrived. But my mother nurses him to sleep before she leaves and assures me he will stay asleep until well after she gets home. She and my father are just going across town to play Crazy Eights with their friends, the Edmonds. They leave the phone number on a slip of paper on the kitchen table and tell me they can be home in fifteen minutes if anything goes wrong. Then they head out the door.
I finish up the dinner dishes while my brothers and sisters watch TV. Then I call to them:
“OK, time for jammies!” I herd them upstairs and help the younger ones get into their pajamas and brush their teeth. When they’re all ready, I say, “Let’s read The Cat in the Hat.”
“Yay! The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat,” sings my brother Rory. I settle them all on my brother Brian’s bed. Then I assign each one of them a word, the way my father does when he reads to them.
“Brian, your word is THE.” At nine, Brian is the oldest of them and can be counted on to say THE every time it comes up in the story, which is quite often.
“Aye, aye, captain!” he says, teasing me. I ignore him.
“Heather, you’re CAT.” Heather is seven and, like Brian, can already read.
“No, I want to be CAT!” yells Rory, who is five.
“OK Rory, you can be CAT. Heather, you can be HAT.” Heather agrees to this and I start to read, but then Tricia, the two year old, says, ”Me too, me too!”
“Can you help Heather with HAT?” I ask.
“No help, no help!” she says indignantly.
“All right, all right, you can be HAT. Do you remember what to do? When I point at you, you need to say HAT.” Tricia nods solemnly.
“Heather, how about doing the word IN?” I ask. Heather frowns, but I explain that IN is a really important word that happens a lot and she reluctantly agrees.
I start reading again: “THE sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat IN THE house all that cold, cold, wet day.” Brian and Heather chime in with their words at the right times and we’re off. We make our way through the book with only a few squabbles. When we finish, I announce, “OK, time for bed.”
At the moment, Brian and Rory share one of the big bedrooms at the front of the house, baby Dana sleeps in the little white crib next to my parents’ bed in the other big bedroom, Heather and I each have one of the two small bedrooms at the back of the house, and Tricia sleeps in the upstairs alcove.
“Who needs to pee?” I ask. Heather goes off to use one of the upstairs bathrooms, while Rory heads for the other one. Brian gets under his covers. I scoop up Tricia and take her to her room. I check her diaper, which is dry, find her blankie, give her a kiss, and put her into her crib, the big brown one. I remember to pull up the side before I leave the room.
I check on Heather, who has come back from the bathroom and gotten into bed. I give her a kiss, then head for the boys’ room. I find Rory’s stuffed dog and tuck him in. I give him a kiss, and then I push the legs of the safety railing under his mattress, so he won’t fall out. Brian declines a kiss. When they’re all settled, I hang around in the hall for a while, waiting for everyone to be quiet. The boys keep giggling and need a reminder that it’s time for sleeping and that our mother has promised dire consequences if they don’t behave for me. Eventually it’s quiet and I head downstairs.
I do my homework at the kitchen table, then settle on the couch to watch TV. I love to read, but without my parents in the house, reading feels too lonely. I need the company of the TV to keep my fears at bay because the old house is full of noises – floorboards that creak, drafty windows that whisper, and ancient radiators that clank and whistle and hiss and moan. It’s easy to start imagining that one of those noises is a bad guy sneaking through the house.
I think about what I’d do if there was a fire. What order would I wake the kids in? Who could walk on their own and who would have to be carried? Who would stay calm and who would get hysterical? Which staircase would we come down? Which door would we go out?
Every half hour or so, I go up the front stairs, listen at all of the bedroom doors, then come down the back stairs. After a couple of hours, I hear whimpering as I climb the stairs. It’s coming from Tricia’s room. I put my face next to the side of the crib. She doesn’t seem to be awake. Maybe she’s having a bad dream. I stick my hand through the bars and shake her gently. She rolls over and stops whimpering. I go back downstairs, but soon I hear crying. It’s Tricia again. I head back up.
“Honey, what’s the matter?” I pull down the side of the crib and put my face close to hers. “Did you have a bad dream?” She looks confused. “Come here,” I say, helping her sit up. She stops crying, but she feels kind of warm to me. “I’m going to get you some water, OK? I’ll be right back.” I go in the bathroom and fill a paper Dixie cup with cold water. She drinks it down and gives me a small smile. “Can you go back to sleep now?” She lies down and puts her head on her pillow. “That’s a girl. Nighty-night.”
I go back to the TV, but in fifteen minutes, Tricia is crying again. I feel a little frustrated, but I want to do a good job, so I take a deep breath and go back to her. She’s crying harder this time, so I take her out of the crib.
“Let’s check your diaper, sweetie.” I stand her on the floor and pull the back of her pajamas and the back of her diaper away from her bottom. But I don’t smell anything. I stick my fingers down the front of the diaper, but it still feels dry.
“Hmm, “ I tell her, “how about if we go downstairs and rock in Mama’s chair for awhile?” She’s back to whimpering, but nods. So I take her down to the kitchen, where my mother keeps the large upholstered rocking chair in which she nurses her babies. We rock and rock, but Tricia doesn’t stop crying. I sing to her, but she just cries harder and harder. I rack my brain – what could be wrong? She’s had some water, her diaper is clean, and she has refused my offer of a bowl of cereal. I’ve rocked her and sung to her, but nothing seems to help. The harder she cries, the more frightened I become. What if something is really wrong with her? I don’t want to call my parents, but I’m holding back my own tears by now and I don’t know what else to do. Holding Tricia on one hip, I dial the number. Mrs. Edmonds answers the phone.
“Hello, Mrs. Edmonds, this is Karen, may I please speak to my mother?”
“Of course dear, it sounds like you’ve got your hands full.” I hear grownups laughing and then my mother comes on the line.
“Hi honey, what’s up?” I burst into tears. “Tricia is crying and crying and I don’t know what’s wrong and I’m really worried.”
“OK, calm down, Dad and I will come right home.” I take Tricia back to the rocking chair and continue to rock her, both of us crying, until my parents arrive. My mother comes into the kitchen and takes Tricia into her arms.
“Tom,” she calls to my father, “Tricia’s got another ear infection.” I stare at my mother in astonishment. She hasn’t even felt Tricia’s forehead. “How do you know that?” I ask.
“She’s pulling on her ear. Look at her.” I look and I see that my mother is right. Tricia is pulling down on the bottom of her left ear lobe. As I watch her, I realize she’s been doing that all evening. But I didn’t pay any attention, because I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know how to interpret what was right in front of me. I feel like an idiot. My mother sees my face. She props Tricia on one hip and puts an arm around me.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. I’ll give her some baby aspirin and take her to the doctor tomorrow. You did a good job – you did all of the right things. Why don’t you go to bed now? I’ll get her settled.” I nod gratefully and head upstairs. I’m awed by my mother’s knowledge and skill. I want to be a mother myself some day. But how will I ever learn everything she knows?