My Babysitter Broke Up With Me

The CSFB (The Competent But Sexy Finnish Babysitter) - who comes in the mornings and takes the kids to the playgrounds or play groups or whatever, so I can get some writing done and you know, retain some of my sanity - wrote me an e-mail this weekend and said she wasn't coming back. This is her e-mail verbatim:

Hi guys

these couple weeks been kind a crazy and i feel very warned out with the job.You guys been great to me but i feel i need to move on.I dont want to babysit anymore (i thought i could but i cant).I will return your keys next week.Sory that things had to end like this but i just cant do this anymore.

And the reason im writing you an email is because i didnt want to talk about ths in front of the kids or being distracted by them on the phone.I love them dearly and i will miss them.I just need to move on and do something completly different for now.

XXXXXX


I have no idea what she's talking about. These last couple of weeks have been more crazy than the last couple of weeks? Anyway...

Aside from how this will effect the kids, who really love this girl, I have my own issues to contend with - I feel like I'm in junior high school and the popular boy (who in this fantasy is Shawn Callahan, who had curly hair and wrestled and barely gave me the time of day in school) has been dating me for like two weeks, which is like super-long in junior high school time, and I'm still just reeling from the fact that I'm actually dating Shawn Callahan at all and I'm all excited and tingly 'cause he just passed me a note in math and for no apparent reason, it says:

Do I want to break up with you? Circle one: Yes or No?

And of course, the "No" is circled. And I'm crushed. And then, to compound the shame, I hear from Marleen Shipee in Home Ec that he took one look at me in my orange gym shorts (our school color) and thought my legs were scrawny and she says this with all kinds of glee and loathing and then, I hear from Carol Plumber (these are all real names. I'm sparing no one) Shawn decided he'd rather go steady with Darcy Duval, because she went to modeling school at Barbizon on the weekends.

Okay, she actually modeled in New York City and she was pretty in a hyper-ventilating, angels-are-singing sort of way, but in my fantasy, she had big hair, bad make-up and attended the Barbizon School in Albany. It's my fantasy, people.

And that's how I felt. The CSFB breaks up with me and I'm a scrawny mess with no boyfriend, pimples and bad gym shorts, crying into my locker, and moaning to my best friend Mary LeClair (whose mother Rita is awesome and totally reads this blog) "Why doesn't he love me anymore?...Why? Why?...What have I done?"

And so this weekend, I did the seven stages of grief. David thought I had lost my mind and I was like a bad sitcom happening in his living room and he just mocked me and laughed a lot. It went something like this:

Stage 1 - Shock & Denial: What? This is impossible! I must re-read this e-mail 20 times to decipher it's every little nuance and innuendo. And then read it to my friends. The neighbors. The children. The goldfish. To strangers on the street. I must discuss it and mull it over in my head until I have dissected the entire thing. I must OBSESS.

Stage 2 - Pain & Guilt: Shit. As a boss, I'm like Leona freakin' Helmsley. Only cuter. Less screamy. And without all the crazy eyebrow action.

Stage 3 - Anger & Bargaining: Every time I run into her in the building (which I will, because she still babysits for other people here, all of whom she apparently likes more than me) I'll make tears well up in my eyes and get all weepy and shit, so she feels bad. Then, I'll teach Lucy to cry on command and say in a vulnerable, orphan, baby voice, "Don't you love me anymore?...I love you." I'll always be sad and miserable in her presence. I'll never let her have any peace. I can keep it up for years. Really mess with her mind. Wa Ha Ha!!!

Stage 4 - Depression, Reflection & Loneliness: I've given her the best days of my life! Why doesn't my babysitter love me? Why? Why? Why????

Stage 5 - The upward turn: Could this be a blessing in disguise? Could this be my chance to have a bi-lingual Spanish babysitter? Could The CSFB have done me a favor? Is this possibly a good thing?

Stage 6 - Reconstruction & Working Through: Yes, Yes...I see it now. We can get a babysitter who isn't chronically in crisis and allergic to everything. Maybe she won't make lunch for the girls that tastes like communion wafer. Crikey! We can have a cat now! The girls can eat properly seasoned food. I won't have to listen to another story about how she met a guy at a club and slept with him and he never called her back. I'm free! Yes, yes...this is good! I see the possibilities...

Stage 7 - Acceptance & Hope: That's it! We'll celebrate with a cat! I wish you well, CSFB. You made my girls happy. It was good while it lasted. But on to bigger and better babysitters!

I'm better now...Really.

xxoo YM