Taking care of a child is an incredibly demanding task, but I thought of it only in terms of the basic, mundane tasks: changing diapers, feeding the child, bathing him, changing his clothes. I had never thought about how childhood encompassed those things but went beyond them as well, for children needed entertainment and company, just like adults did. I would quickly learn just how demanding taking care of a child could be.
When my aunt asked me to babysit my three-year-old cousin, Rayan, I readily agreed. He is an adorable child, and I assumed that his angelic looks correlated with angelic behavior as well. Besides, I was just going to watch him for an hour while my aunt ran errands, and I reasoned that sixty minutes was too short of a time for anything to really go wrong. What I didn’t understand is that the very definition of childhood entails some mischief.
The trouble began even before my aunt had left the house. As soon as Rayan saw his mother put on her coat, he insisted on going with her. She tried telling him it was too cold to go outside and that she was going to return soon, but he could not be convinced. I could see the initial indications of a temper tantrum brewing, so I suggested that Rayan help me cook his dinner. Together we stirred Maggie noodles as they simmered on the stove, and he was so engrossed in the importance of his task that he did not notice that his mother had left.
When dinner was ready, we sat at the kitchen table while I attempted to feed Rayan. He had other plans—he had spotted a plate of raisins and was busy munching on those and kept refusing to eat the noodles. When I removed the plate of raisins, he shot me a reproachful look and then promptly crawled under the table, into a corner where I couldn’t reach him. I attempted to coax him from the recesses of the table, but he only entrenched himself further. I got down on my hands and knees and tried to feed him under the table, but he turned his face away.
I realized that a three-year-old was defeating all of my ingenious ploys. Being a pedantic nerd, I frantically tried to think of any literature I had read that could help me deal with this dilemma of a child refusing to eat, but I couldn’t recall any suggestions. Where was Dr. Spock when you needed him? Rayan must have taken pity on me, because he crawled out from the table of his own accord and allowed me to feed him some dinner. Relieved that one of my duties was accomplished, I asked Rayan what he wanted to do next.
“Watch Spiderman!” he responded.
I hunted all over the house for the Spiderman DVD until I remembered that it was in my brother’s car. I popped in the DVD, and when Tobey Maguire appeared on the screen, Rayan shook his head and told me he wanted to watch Spiderman.
“But Tobey Maguire is Spiderman,” I attempted to explain, but Rayan looked at me as though I had no idea what I was talking about and asked me where Spiderman was.
I fast forwarded to an action scene where Spiderman sailed through the air. This prompted another flurry of questions from Rayan: What’s Spiderman doing? How can he fly? Where is he going? What is a web? Why did he fall?
The kid was a bottomless fount of questions. He fired them at me rapidly, in his lilting lisp and then stared at me expectantly, waiting for some adult illumination. None of my answers seemed to satisfy him; it was apparent that I was failing miserably. Eventually I gave up and told Rayan I didn’t know, and I could just see him wondering what kind of grown up I was who couldn’t even tell a three-year-old how Spiderman could fly.
Suddenly, Rayan informed me that he had to go to the bathroom. I led him to the bathroom on the first floor, but I had forgotten that it was being remodeled and could not be used. When I realized that we would have to go upstairs and Rayan repeated that he had to go to the bathroom, I panicked. I could just imagine what would happen if he had an accident on my mother’s rug imported from Turkey. So I grabbed him, tucked him under my arm like a football and dashed upstairs. Luckily, mishap was avoided.
I experienced a genuine sense of relief when my aunt returned home because I was completely exhausted after an hour of intense physical and mental exertion. I’m getting too old to be crawling under tables and answering questions about superpowers.
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