November 13th, 2010 11:08pm - Quotebook

* Three-year-old: "My big sister used to be a boy."

* Three-year-old: "Kara, do you love me?"

Me: "Of course I love you!"

Three-year-old: "Is it because I can do cool things? Or because I can tackle my big brother? I can make him cry like a baby."

* Five-year-old (to a friend's mom): "No, I can't have more than two marshmallows. I don't want to get diabetes."

* Three-year-old: "I was the winner!" I got craps in my hands!"

(Trying to say people clapped his hands for being the best tackler)

* Five-year-old: "I am NOT getting in the car. It stinks so bad. I'm not getting in."

Three-year-old: "I've been dreaming about the car."

* Me: "Oh no, you tripped over a rock and hit your chin?"

Five-year-old: "No, my chin hit a rock by itself."

* Three-year-old: "My foot is cold! My foot is cold!"

Me: "Your one foot?"

Three-year-old: "Yes, my one foot is cold."

(Crying five minutes later): "My foot is getting harder. I don't like my foot."

* Five-year-old: "Why do people have skin?"

Nine-year-old: "So nothing falls out."

Five-year-old: "You mean your intestines could fall out? Or like a bird?"

* Three-year-old: "There are no people outside. It must be raining."

(It wasn't raining)

* Five-year-old: "Look, the sky is cracked."

* Me: "Stop kissing my feet!"

Three-year-old: "Why?"

Me: "Because kissing feet is gross."

Three-year-old: "No, it's wonderful."

November 8th 2010 7:10pm - Left at a Birthday Party

This past Friday, the nine-year-old had his tenth birthday party. The boys met at the house before the mom took seven fifth graders go-karting. Within nine minutes, the screaming, sprinting mass of boys had successfully accomplished annihilation. Of everything. The five-year-old howled in a corner of the house because one of the boys had torn off her doll's head. I looked out the window to see the seven-year-old chasing after the fifth-graders shrieking and throwing rocks at them because they'd drawn in pen on the walls of the treehouse. Two of the boys were whimpering because they'd been attacked by two other boys who decided to be nine-year-old ninjas with nunchucks. I had seen one get conked on the head. Another boy foamed at the mouth with fury at being hit. I saw him wrestle a plastic sword from one of his friends before tearing past the window in pursuit of the ninjas. Another boy picked up a plastic child-size car to demonstrate his strength. When he threw it to further establish his prowess, it crashed into the concrete and one of the wheels dislodged. The five-year-old sank into sobbing hysterics because of the car wheel while still cradling her doll's decapitated head.

The three-year-old howled about his wet doodle. The baby cried because everyone within a twenty-foot radius of him was either bawling or running through the house rioting. The mom had tears in her eyes.

The mom had thought to meet at the house, feed the boys in ten minutes, and be out the door in fifteen. She managed to drive away fifteen minutes after they arrived. I walked through the house and yard holding Baby and trailed by the three, five, and seven-year-olds, all of whom sniveled or moaned their agony, two of whom sucked their thumbs.

We surveyed the wreckage. The mom had prepared an after-school snack for the boys of fruit salad, mini hot dogs, popcorn, cookies, and juice. The food had been impeccably presented on plastic colored plates and lined up on the table for quick consumption. Kiwi chunks were in the seven-year-old's hair. Smashed popcorn bits and cookies were ground into the sandbox and the concrete. Juice slid down the house windows. Dolls were missing limbs. We played Find the Dolly Parts around the yard and house. We never located one of the arms. Flashlights had been disassembled. A swing had been dismantled. Balls were over fences and up trees. A kite had been torn into three pieces. Someone had dug a coffin-sized hole in the middle of the grass. Someone else had turned on the hose and drowned the plants across one side of the house. The seven-year-old's Skip It had been used as a bunny leash and tied around Thumper's head.

I mollified the harassed younger siblings by giving them ice cream. I then put on a movie and texted the mom moral support.

By the time the posse of the antichrist returned, I had given the younger kids baths, put them in their pajamas, and subdued them into food comas. It was 6:30pm.

Five of the six child bombers' parents were at the house waiting to pick them up when the mom pulled up in her tank of a car. The thank-you's were said, the exchanges were done, and the pre-teen forces of destruction were gone. The family was going to their beach house for the weekend and wanted to leave immediately. The dad arrived and I helped them load up the car and strap in the kids. As the car backed out of the driveway, one of the birthday boy's friends walked out of the house and stood beside me.

"Your parents never came to pick you up?" I asked.

"Nope."

I ran after the car waving my arms in the air and screaming like a madwoman. When the car stopped, the window rolled down, and I explained there was still a kid left, the mom asked if I could just take him home, as she wanted to get to the beach house.

When I walked the friend up to his house, a babysitter opened the door. I explained that nobody had come to pick him up from the party.

"Weird," she said. "The parents are at a party, and I'm watching the other two kids. This is my first time babysitting. I didn't even know there was a third one."

November 3rd, 2010 11:04am - November 2011 Quote of the Month

Three-year-old: "I felt a secret dream. And I won't tell to nobody. Nobody can't find out because I don't remember it. Do you know it, Kara? Do you know my secret dream?"

November 2nd, 2011 10:27pm - Wet Doodle

By November, the three-year-old had been screaming and crying about his wet doodle for a week and a half. When his mom took him to the doctor, she was informed that his uncircumcised penis tip was too long and should probably be cut off. I had noticed for a few months that the skin hanging off the kid's wiener was exceptionally long. However, I'd never studied uncircumcised child penises. I thought it was normal.

I heard crying issuing from the bathroom, and realized that a little human sobbing in the toilet should probably be investigated. I entered to see the three-year-old with his pants and underwear pulled down. He was yanking on his willy like it was a stuffed doll he was trying to mutilate.

"I don't want a wet doodle," he screamed, tears exploding from his eyes.

"My doodle's wet, it's wet inside," he continued.

"Okay, okay, let's wash your hands and then go eat dinner," I attempted to soothe him.

He put his pecker-infested hands directly on my face.

Halfway through dinner, the three-year-old put his fork down and ruptured into tears.

"I have a wet doodle," he sobbed.

The five-year-old thoughtfully responded, "Luckily I don't have a wet doodle to worry about."

The mom and I were on our second glasses of wine. I nodded my consent, shrugged, and chugged my wine. I was glad I didn't have a doodle. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Those things operate independently of male bodies. They're like leprechaun aliens in the form of penises.

However, the mom answered her five-year-old daughter with, "You'll have a doodle to worry about some day."

I had to cover my mouth and nose with my hands so the wine in my mouth wouldn't attack all the children within a seven-foot radius of me.

The mom laughed. The five-year-old turned a bewildered face to me.

"Kara, do you have a doodle?" she asked.

"No, you know girls don't have doodles! You'll have a husband some day. Your mom's saying that you'll have to worry about his doodle."

The five-year-old pondered this for three seconds before replying: "I won't worry about his doodle. I'll smack it out the window."

October 25th 10:12am - October 2010 Photo of the Month

Location: Around Queenstown, New Zealand

October 21st, 2010 12:15am - Baby Terrorist

I love babies. Retract that sentence. I love the thought of babies. I take that sentence back too. I would love babies if they were dolls that smiled and giggled. Inanimate objects, preferably.

When I began babysitting for five children, the youngest was nine weeks old. He ate and slept and didn't move. I could bring my laptop into the house and watch porn. Nine months later, Baby was a terror.

Baby crawled, rotated, squirmed. He began stumbling around like a drunken midget. He ate dirt and swallowed sand. He put his fingers in the toilet and then sucked them. He toppled headfirst into the fence surrounding the pool. He would slam his fingers in drawers and scream until someone released him from the agony he caused himself. As a human entity, I assumed that Baby would learn. If you open a drawer, remove all the contents, and then fling the thing shut with your fingers still in the drawer, it will hurt. Baby never learned. Domestic turkeys comprehend objects and pain association more rapidly.

Baby's incessant motion required piercing intelligence from whoever changed his diaper. I changed his diaper frequently and would have to maintain the kid's amusement long enough to strip him, wipe him, and strap him into another diaper.

By early October, I would wrestle Baby to the floor and then hold a toy in front of his face with one of my hands while changing his diaper with the other hand. I would try not to deck him in the head with the toy, and it would hold his interest long enough to swap out diapers.

By late October, Baby would lose interest. Fast. I'd get him half naked and lying on the floor on his back, but in the second it took me to position the diaper under his ass, he'd roll over and crawl away. When he had a diaper full of urine, I'd wipe him down while he crawled. When he had a diaper full of excrement, I'd pin him to the ground, sing into his tiny little face, and work as rapidly as I could. Short of impeding his motion by strangling him, I did all I could.

The past few days, Baby had produced particularly liquid poops. I knew this. I knew I had to change his diaper with a speed that I wasn't sure was humanely possible. I undressed him with the urgency of a sex addict ho, unfastened his diaper, and stabilized his stomach with my hand.

Baby was freakishly strong, and wrassled out from under my grip. He turned over and crawled away from me like a baby on steroids. Though I was tempted, I couldn't give Baby a smackdown. Liquid shit leaked from the diaper on the wood floor, but Baby was headed for the carpet. I abandoned the diaper and boomed towards the infant ass. I got there just before fluid feces dripped onto the carpet. They trickled into my hand.

October 20th 9:14am - October 2010 Quote of the Month

Three-year-old (riding his bicycle in circles in the backyard and screaming): "Move my baby's car, move his big yellow car out!"

Me: "Okay, okay, stop yelling. I'll move it."

Three-year-old (furiously pedaling): "I'm training."

Me: "Training for what?"

Three-year-old: "Being a big boy."

October 16th 2010 7:20pm - Little Boy vs Man

Nothing good ever happens after two in the morning. Boyfriend and I drank a bottle of rum between nine at night and one thirty in the morning. By two, I was tired and drunk and laying spread-eagle on my bed. I wanted to sleep. Boyfriend wanted to go out. I fell asleep for two minutes. Boyfriend woke me up.

"Baby, your snoring sounds like you're cutting down a forest with a chainsaw," he said. "Let's go out."

I knew it was a bad idea, but I was drunk and accommodating. We called a cab. It was two in the morning. New Zealand taxi drivers don't wait out front for you for a few minutes. They don't call your cell phone to inform you that they've arrived. New Zealand cabbies ring the house bell incessantly until someone answers. When Boyfriend and I walked from my pool house, past the main house and to the street for the taxi driver, the mom of the kids I looked after was standing on the balcony of the main house. Waiting for us.

"Your cab driver's been ringing the bell for two whole minutes," she screamed like she was addressing a child rapist. The woman has five kids.

"Oh my God, I'm so so so sorry," I replied.

"It is not okay," she yelled back at me, before slamming the balcony door to her bedroom.

I was shithoused and I shrugged.

Boyfriend and I went to Provedor. We stumbled out three and a half hours later, at five-thirty in the morning. We went to Provedor because it was the bar where we met. He thought it would be romantic. I have since learned that all Aucklanders refer to that bar as Provide-a-Whore. Romantic.

It was a Saturday night, and/or Sunday morning, but regardless, Boyfriend spent the night. The three-year-old woke us up. The pool house is my pool house. Little children that I babysit for were not allowed in my domain. Boyfriend and I woke up to find the three-year-old staring at us.

"Hey Baby, what's going on?" my still-intoxicated self asked the three-year-old.

"You're naked," he responded. The kid's a genius.

"Ah, shit," I said, and regained enough consciousness to observe our situation. Boyfriend and I might as well have been nudists. We were naked and sleeping on my mattress. But my mattress wasn't on the bed stand. It was on the carpet.

I told the three-year-old the location of my chocolate stash downstairs, and without hesitation, fell into a semi-coma sleep.

Hours later, when I aroused myself enough to speak coherently and face daylight, I walked into the backyard. The first person I saw was the three-year-old.

He looked at me and asked, "Is Chris your friend still naked in your bed?"

October 14th 10:10pm - Luging in Queenstown

A few days later, the same three children and I went on Queenstown's luge. I had read the Skyline Luge website to ensure that, 1: the children wouldn't die, and 2: I wouldn't die. The website reads:

"From grandkids to grandparents - the Syline Luge is a fun filled gravity ride for all ages and abilities! Choose from two tracks, one scenic and gentle, the other advanced and adventurous. The scenic track is a leisurely ride with gentle gradient, easy bends and dips with several rest areas giving riders plenty of opportunity to stop and take great photographs and enjoy panoramic views... It's safe too. You're in full control!"*

This sounded fantastic. We wouldn't die, and I could take pictures.

We almost died.

The chairlift protected the children as effectively as a ten-inch butcher knife. I rode up the mountain with the three-year-old. I looked down at the forty-foot drop and out at the bar two feet from our bodies, supposedly strapping us in, and I clutched him to me. It was the only thing I could do. Two three-year-olds could have fit in the gap between the seat and the bar.

"I can't breathe," he managed to straggle out halfway up the mountain.

"Shhh, don't say anything," I said. "You might fall."

After we had bought our tickets and stood in line for ten minutes, we boarded the luges. The seven-year-old stepped into her luge and asked me if she could use the toilet after the ride.

"Of course you can," I said.

"Good, because the pee is dripping out," she replied.

"The pee is dripping out?" I repeated. I was just confused. The amount of time between a child's brain revealing that it has need of a toilet, and when the excretions actually come astonishes me.

I pulled the kid out of the luge. When I asked one of the workers where the bathrooms were, he said they were at the bottom of the run. We used the toilet in the staff quarters.

Luges in New Zealand comprise a big piece of plastic functioning as a sled, wheels underneath, and handlebars like a bicycle. Upon pulling the handlebars back towards you, the sled goes. When you release the handlebars, they push down the front of the sled and stop movement. It would have been simple, except that I luged with a three-year-old lunatic. From the beginning, he grabbed the handlebars and assumed control.

"I a crazy driver," he screamed as we accelerated out of the launching point.

"Yes, but you're not driving," I yelled. "I'm driving!"

"I a craaaazzyyyy driver!" he replied, grabbed the handles, and swung them back and from side to side. The luge flew down the track and switched directions faster than a rabid dog. I couldn't see anything but blurred colors. I seized the handles, steadied them from the psychotic swinging, and released them a little, so the luge would slow down.

"I driving," the three-year-old cried.

"I know, and you're doing great, but I need to help," I said. "We can drive together."

The unhinged child clutched the handles, yanked them back, and shouted, "I a craaaaazzzzyyy driver!"

"Oh my God!" I shrieked as we hurtled down the hill and crashed into the rubber-lined track. I gripped the handle in one hand and the child in the other.

"I'm driving!" I said with the authority of someone concerned for the safety of life.

The three-year-old nodded, seemingly accepting that I was the driver. Then he snatched the handles again like a little thief and turned us into the downward slope of the hill. Down we went. I screamed the roar of fatalistic terror while the three-year-old repeated, "I a craaazzzy driver!"

At one point a luge ahead of us swayed back and forth across the track in graceful, languid loops. We hurtled directly for it. As I wrestled against three-year-old strength to steer away from the ninety-year-old woman, we collided, the three-year-old shot forward and almost went head-first into the cement. I threw my arm around his waist and screamed, "Oh my God!" again.

I apologized excessively while the three-year-old smiled as wide as he could. When I sensed that he was about to clap his hands out of glee, I placed my left hand over his but continued saying sorry and looking at grandma. We finally made it to the bottom, my arms and throat aching, my heart pounding palpitations in my ears.

"Time to go back to the house," I exclaimed.

"We have one more ticket!" the kids reminded me and scampered off to the chairlift again. Luging was as appealing as a man's hairy, bearded back. I had to ride with the despot again.

* The link for Queenstown's luging site:

http://www.skyline.co.nz/queenstown/luge/

The sentence, "It's safe too," is highlighted in red on the website.

October 9th, 2010 7:05pm - It Smells Pretty

Three of the kids I babysit and I went on a hike a half hour outside of Queenstown, New Zealand. They had wanted to go to the movies. I had been in Australia for over two weeks and hadn't run in a month. I took them on a hike.

New Zealanders refer to hiking as tramping. The first time I heard the term, I had initiated the conversation by saying I wanted to go on an adventure. One of my friends suggested tramping. I assumed he meant we should wander the streets looking for skanky whores. When I hesitated, he insisted we go tramping.

"Really? I was thinking along the lines of kayaking or something," I had said.

"It's sort of the same concept. Let's go tramping," he replied.

"Oh fine, let's go find you a hooker."

"In the trees?" he asked.

Hiking around a half hour outside of Queenstown, we ended up at a golf course. I taught the girls how to make daisy chains. The three-year-old wandered around looking for golf balls. We were on our second daisy chain when I noticed the little boy cupping something in his hands. He seemed to shelter and protect whatever he held. I thought it might be a baby bird. As I walked over to him, he looked up and smiled.

"It smells pretty," he said.

He held black dog shit in his hands. I screamed.

Ten minutes later, the seven-year-old announced that she had to pee. I've learned that when little kids say they have to pee, they generally are already peeing. Little kids are like needy toys. You just have to carry around two spare pairs of underwear and three containers of baby wipes. Per child. When the girl said she had to pee, I snatched one of her hands and dragged her into the bushes. With her other hand, she grabbed her crotch and shook her head. It was my daily moment for feeling exactly like a pedophile.

When we were two steps in, I stopped hauling her and tried to take off her pants.

"No, not here, we're not far enough away from people," she said.

For being seven, the girl has an unfounded sense of propriety. When I looked around, the only people I saw were her younger brother and sister. They don't count. The three of them straddle each other in the bath, but the seven-year-old was too modest to pull down her pants on the off-chance they might glimpse her coochie.

"Please!" she exclaimed.

I towed her around the other side of a tree. As I helped her pull her pants down, a massive horse-stream of urine gushed onto her underwear, her pants, and my hand.

October 8th, 2010 10:45am - Little Nipples

I've never been concerned with the size of my boobs. Men have bigger knockers than I do. Ten-year-old girls have more pronounced bazongas. If I had juicy juicy mangoes, I'd accidentally hit them. I'd trip over them. I'd run them into walls. My mom's offered me breast implants because she wants me to be happy and confident.

If I had hooters, all of my shirts would be slutty and inappropriate, and I guarantee that within two years, the silicone would rupture, deflate, or explode. I'd get hit directly in the milk wagon by a baseball, a goat would jump on me, or I'd run into a tree attempting to snowboard. I've repeatedly replied no thanks to the fake ta ta's. It wouldn't be a good investment. They just wouldn't last long.

While my mom and I frequently discuss my fun bag deficiency, we have never reviewed my nipples. We were in Queenstown, and my mom asked me to rub lotion into her upper back. As I smoothed the cream between her shoulder blades, she turned around and placed her hands on my shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Sorry for what?"

"I think you have little nipples, and you probably got them from me. I'm sorry. My mom had such beautiful large ones."

October 6th, 2010 12:37pm - Queenstown, Mom, Bar, Boys

I stayed in Sydney at a friends' place on Bondi Beach for almost a week. It was fantastic. Except that when my mom and her friend arrived in Australia to meet up with me at the end of the week, I was in the process of shedding my fourth layer of skin. Like a snake. From now on, I'm restricting myself to traveling through countries that have an ozone layer.

My mom and her friend are babes. Twice men referred to my mom as my sister. And they weren't trying to flatter or be funny or clever. They were serious. Both times, while in stores wandering around, I raised my head to locate her, and was told by employees, "If you're looking for your sister, she's over there." My mom wasn't even in earshot.
My mom, her friend, and I ambled through the QVB, Sydney's Queen Victoria Building. I left them for three minutes to find a bathroom. When I returned, they had moved. Fifteen minutes, two phone calls and a text later, my mom said that they'd gone out for a coffee. They were at a pub three blocks away. The pub didn't serve coffee.
When my mom and I cruised on over to Queenstown, New Zealand, we wanted to hit up the bars. A few nights ago, we went to the Ballarat Trading Company. The lighting was dim and the atmosphere old school. There was a piano, guns and animal heads on the walls, and framed black-and-white photos everywhere. The country of New Zealand does not have bears. Regardless of the fact that the Trading Co. boasted a stuffed bear standing up, there were maybe six people in the bar.

My mom and I sat on stools at the bar sipping on our second glasses of Chardonnay when two guys in their late twenties staggered in. Each one's weight supported the other as they wobbled through the doors. They were wrecked and it was awesome. They each had handfuls of cash. They stammered next to us at the bar, threw their bills into a pile on the bar's counter, and then emptied their pockets of money. Fives, tens, and twenties blasted from their bodies.
"Whadday wanta drink?"
"Chardonnay, thanks!" my mom exclaimed.
We danced. I don't just mean me and one of the guys. I mean, one of the guys started swaying, my mom mistook it for dancing and began dancing. The other drunkard smiled and almost fell over. I joined in because I felt awkward.
The guys rocked out. They sang, they laughed, they screamed. They amused me. After they paid for four drinks for us, I announced that it was my round. The guys wanted whiskey, my mom and I wanted wine. I turned around to the bar and ordered two whiskeys and two glasses of wine. The bartender asked if the whiskeys were for the guys.
"Yes," I replied.

"They're cut off from the bar. I'm really sorry, but I can't serve them. You can't get them drinks."
"Awesome, saves me money!" I said and turned back around with the two wine glasses. The guys were gone.
"What happened?" I asked my mom. "Did you scare them off?"
I was joking, but my mom replied, "maybe..."
She had lectured them and verbally abused them for allowing a girl to pay.
"I never ever ever pay," she had said to them. "I'm a girl, and girls don't pay. You never make girls pay. What kind of men are you? Seriously, what kind of men are you that you make girls pay? Do you have balls?"
They ran away. I attempted to explain the concept that after taking advantage of guys and their drinks, it's only polite to reciprocate. Girls should buy one round after the guy has paid for two or three. My mom had none of it.
"Girls never pay," she repeated.

September 29th 7:04pm - September 2010 Quote of the Month

Three-year-old (screaming/crying): "My doodle's wet. I don't like wet doodles."

Three-year-old (continuing to cry): "My doodle's fat! My doodle's fat!"

Me: "Your doodle's fat?"

Three-year-old: "Yes, right here, (points to balls) right here it's fat."

Me: "Oh, baby, that's where you'll get balls."

Three-year-old (stops crying): "Bouncy balls? Do they bounce, Kara?"

September 26th, 2010 11:32pm - Sydney and Regurgitation

I rarely pride myself on my story-telling skills. My oral skills are lacking. At best they're average. However, I was in Sydney and had been staying for a few days with some Sydneyites I'd traveled with in India. The previous day we had guzzled alcohol for fourteen hours on Manly Beach. And I don't just mean cheap beer. I'm talking cheap boxed wine (goon), rum, whiskey, and beer.

There is no ozone layer above Australia and the sun was blazing like a joint. We were on the sand the entire day. Drinking booze for, again, take note, fourteen hours.

The following morning I was still raging drunk and rolling with a story. I had woken up, realized that I hadn't consumed water in twenty-seven hours, and downed half a carton of orange juice out of a glass big enough for a cyclops. An hour later, one of my friends barbecued breakfast while I lay on my stomach on a towel in the park. I felt amazing. The two Sydneyites I had traveled with through India, a brother, and seven of their friends surrounded me, captivated by my powers of speech. My words held them.

They nodded along like bobbleheads to my every syllable. They laughed before I said the funny parts. I was a story-telling god.

I recounted July 4th a few months prior. There were Jello shots out of brownie tins, keg stands without legs being held, phones found in microwaves, friends screaming because they forgot their mortars while being assured by others who had remembered theirs, and people kissing an AK-47 before pretending to shoot it by aiming at the house.

There were people who played Circle of Death for hours. They woke up the next morning having never heard of the game. I was in the midst of telling about my four male friends who decided upon playing strip flip cup. Losing team had to be naked. One of the naked guys placed the unlit end of a lit sparkler in his ass. He chicken-danced around the yard with it. I opened my mouth to say that he had removed it from his own ass and shoved the lit end into our friend's naked asshole.

But, I never got to tell that part of the story. I opened my lips, and then a massive liquid bomb exploded from my mouth. There was no warning. I was spiraling a spectacular story, and then orange juice projectile vomited from my mouth. I wasn't even feeling hungover.

"He took the sparkler," and then, boom, spit and orange juice blasted from me. One minute I was a story-telling lord, and the next I was a crazy bitch who had just thrown a liquid volcano out of her mouth. There was a moment of silence, like in church, and then everyone sank, laughing in hysterics.

"What was that?"

"I just met you. Who are you?"

"How was that possible?"

"What was that?"

"Who are you?" repeated twenty-three times from the seven people I was meeting for the first time. I lost the story-teller masterhood. I still felt fantastic. I was just confused by my body.

When stomach muscles had recovered and everyone had eaten breakfast, we played cricket.

Twice when I ran to retrieve the ball, enormous liquid cannons shot from my mouth like a freaking demolition team. Once, the juices projectile vomited from me and landed on the ball.

September 21st, 2010 6:00pm - Solscape and a Storm

Before I went to Australia, the boyfriend wanted to stay at an oasis on the beach for five days. We would kayak, fish, swim, surf, and ride bikes. Raglan, New Zealand's most notorious beach town, claims the longest left-hand break in the world.

The last time I took a surfing class was six years ago in Hawaii. My surfboard collided with the instructor's head, he crawled out of the ocean, and someone had to replace him. I wanted another surfing lesson. In Raglan. We hadn't anticipated that one of the largest storms in the world would still be raging on New Zealand.

The boyfriend drove us through wind, rain, and hail. I have 20/400 vision. I can hardly drive in the sun. In preparation for the trip, Boyfriend took it on himself to book our accommodation.

Our conversation a week prior:

Him: "I'm going to get us an awesome place to stay right on the beach. In a hut or something. On the beach!"

I was skeptical. I'd been backpacking through seven countries for a year and a half. I knew how to locate decent hostels.

Me: "Are you sure? I'm looking online now and I really don't mind booking it."

Him: "I just found the perfect place. On the sand. We can stumble out onto the beach. Boom!"

Me: "Oh sweet, what place is it? I love stumbling out onto the beach!"

Him: "I'm not going to tell you, it's a surprise. I'm a genius. We're staying on a beach!"

He sung the last part. Over the next week he spoke of how excited he was. He praised his powers of discovery.

The place was called Solscape. It was not on a beach.

Raindrops assaulted the car's windshield as we drove up a hill, a ten minute drive away from the sand. Wind smacked my hair into my eyes as we got out.

"What is this place?" I asked.

It looked like a crazy commune cult. Midget burnt red and puke green cabooses dotted the grass. We were expected to sleep in them. I saw one bathroom.

"The website said eco friendly... I thought it was on the beach," he replied, looking around confused.

"Did it say it was on the beach?" I asked.

"No... but there was a picture of a beach on the website."

"Was there a caboose on the beach?"

"No... but there was a picture of sand!"

"There was one picture of one random beach to show the surrounding area and you take that to mean the hostel is on the beach?" I persisted.

"False advertising!" he exclaimed.

We had a bottle of rum for the night. We stayed at Solscape the one night. A small bed took over ninety percent of our caboose. There weren't electrical outlets. After drinking rum by ourselves while sitting on the bed, he started to get claustrophobic and I started to get depressed.

The cabooses surrounded a large wooden circular communal kitchen, so we went there with the remainder of our bottle. In a short time, we altered the quiet lull of eco friendly conversation into a yelling, rum-chugging drinking game of Pyramid. I ran back to the caboose for my laptop so I could play party music instead of the nature sounds softly projecting a tranquil atmosphere. We gave away shots and made friends.

The next morning, we relocated to my hostel of choice, Raglan Backpackers. When we checked out of Solscape, the receptionist apologized for the noise the night before.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "This is a peaceful place to rest and meditate on life's journey. I sincerely hope you're not leaving because of the noise. It's never been that loud here before. Ever."

"Um. No, family emergency," I responded.

Raglan Backpackers offered hammocks, free bike rental, a hot tub, sauna, golf and surf lessons, kayaks, and fishing rods. I was ecstatic to do everything. I did nothing. It stormed the entire time.

September 17th 4:14pm - Canoe Club and a Storm

One night when I was drunk and wandering the streets, someone told me that the University of Auckland's Canoe Club threw raging parties. When I heard this, I stomped in a circle enacting my best version of a Native American rain dance. I might as well have been wearing a feather headdress and a loincloth. I chanted on the sidewalk in intoxicated enthusiasm. Apparently when I'm liquored up, I associate canoes solely with Native Americans.

Predictably, I joined the Canoe Club.

New Zealand is two-thirds the size of California. Australia is essentially the size of the United States. The weekend I paid forty dollars to go on a trip with the Canoe Club, a storm the size of Australia hit New Zealand. In 80 mph monsoon gusts of wind, rain, hail and devastation, the Canoe Club guys wanted to raft for two days and camp for two nights. Outside. In tents. In one of the largest storms of the year on Earth. Everyone signed up still went.

So that we delayed driving directly into the tempest, my driver suggested we leave Saturday morning instead of Friday night. When we left Auckland, the rain was still bombing around and mighty gales harassed my sanity.

Because the rain had been too painful to sleep in, the night before everyone had relocated from the dirt to a backpackers' accommodation a quarter of a mile down the road. I was pleased about this, as I would spend Saturday night under a roof instead of homeless in a storm.

When commercial rafting, the guides take about twenty minutes to pump up the rafts and assemble everything. With the Canoe Club, it took over two hours. Thirty of us huddled in small groups whispering happy, sunny memories as the rain pelted our bodies and the winds leaked into our souls. Dutch Girl danced to keep warm. But she's a good dancer. She gyrated and swung and thrust. I curled my toes to try to prevent hypothermia. I was wearing sandals.

I had borrowed a military jacket from the boyfriend, and a wet suit from the parents I work for. I struggled putting on the wetsuit more than I've struggled with anything in my life. My legs were too big, my neck too wide, and my hands too frozen. I broke nails and wet skin ripped off my fingers. It was the dad's wetsuit. As I zippered up the neoprene eighteen minutes after starting, I realized I might have trouble breathing. Dutch Girl then pointed out that I had put it on backward.

"Isn't it painful having the zipper in the front of your throat?"

Yes, it was painful. I couldn't swallow properly. But my body couldn't take going through the process of getting the wetsuit off and back on again. My life already hated me.

One of the raft guides wandered over and looked at me like I was wearing a bikini in 2010's biggest storm in the world.

"Do you have any poly pro?" he asked.

"What's that?"

He sighed.

"What about booties?"

"Sandals?"

He sighed again and provided me with a pair of booties for a six-year-old. When I shoved my feet in, I felt like I had nipple clamps across my toes.

I didn't have any poly pro, but everyone else did. Poly pro keeps you warm, dry, and comfortable. Before we ever got on the river, I was sopping wet and considering the possibility that frostbite might spread across every inch of my skin.

Once we were on the river I tried to concentrate on staying inside the raft. Because of the rain and my eyesight, I couldn't see rocks until we collided with them. I also couldn't detect the movement of the other paddles. Thus, I couldn't synchronize. I primarily held on. The wash of rain had flooded the river. The rapids were faster and the water deeper. We flew down the river. I didn't know until later that every raft threw at least three people into the water, and almost every canoer flipped over. By the end of the run, strangers were in our rafts, and our rafters were in strangers' rafts. One person was still in the river.

That night, I was still so wet and so tired that when I assisted in making dinner, I cooked the pasta for the spaghetti before the carrots and garlic and onions had even been diced. When my driver walked in and saw what I was doing, he confiscated the knife and tossed my bottle of wine into my hands. This was good, as I was thirsty and sure I was about the chop off part of my finger.

Many drinks and a few hours later, I noticed that in addition to myself, a few of the rafting guides were suffering from speech impairment and loss of balance. I went to sleep confident that I was God and I would stop the rain.

I awoke the next morning to the sounds of rain and snoring. The rain crashed into the windows of the backpacker's dorm. The one most responsible for our lives, the Captain, slept on the floor underneath a bottom bunk. He didn't have a blanket.

The storm continued, and we persisted in rafting a second day. I would have rather stared at a white wall. But, because everyone else did, I stood in the rain, contracted hypothermia, and put on the wetsuit. It only took me fifteen minutes the second time around.

We altered rivers the second day. Twenty-seven seconds in, the first raft got stuck on a rock. After four minutes spent dislodging it, the raft inched along for another thirty seconds before getting jammed on another rock. Every raft lodged on the same rocks. It was like watching a flock of sheep follow the leader, each one in procession tripping over the same stones. What should have taken four minutes to raft down, consumed forty. Three hours later, we were where we should have been after an hour.

I was confused, because rain poured down on us, but the rafts stuck on rocks every minute. We later found out that nobody had released water into the river from the dam.

September 14th 11:03pm - September 2010 Photo of the Month

Location: Hamilton Botanical Gardens, New Zealand

September 12th 2010 9:40pm - Trampoline with a Three-Year-Old

When we're inside the house, the three-year-old I babysit relishes playing Judo Kick. He screams, "Judo kick!" and hurls his body into my legs.

When we're outside the house on the trampoline, he enjoys playing horses. He screams, "Horses!" and hurls his body into my legs.

Bruises generally garnish my shins.

A few days ago, he shrieked, "Horses!" and almost dislocated my hand while dragging me to the trampoline. He then introduced the hoola hoop.

"Horses jump through hula hoops," he informed me.

The night before I had drunk a bottle and raised hell. I was too hung over and too tired to protest to a three-year-old. I elevated the hula hoop, and he either jumped through it or bull-charged into it.

After every time he jumped through, he'd ask me if he had jumped over the hula hoop. I was more likely to vomit on him, but I didn't tell him that. I agreed that he'd bounced over the three-foot high hoop. Every time. He began referring to himself as Superman.

Far too soon for Superman, my arm and brain terminated function. I blame the ethanol fermenting inside my head. I forgot to exercise caution in the hula hoop's placement. One edge of the hula hoop rested on the trampoline while my skull rested on my bicep.

The three-year-old continued flinging himself through the hula hoop. Instead of tumbling onto the jumping mat, his shoulder would smash into the trampoline's outer safety pad rim. He'd land on one arm. He'd slam his head into the mesh. He'd smile. He bounced right off the trampoline. Superman landed on his head. He was inches away from crushing the bunny.

September 8th 8:30am - Going for the Boob

I have never found large nipples especially attractive. My mom recently apologized to me for endowing me with dwarf nipples.

"Your grandma had such lovely large nipples," she wistfully informed me.

"That's okay," I assured her, "I can't imagine tiny boobs and massive nipples would be a good look."

Some days, I wear slutty shirts or hooker dresses. They're not skanky on me, because I have no boobs. If I ever fit into an A cup, they might be scandalous. Some nights, I put the baby to sleep. When he barks, bawls, or bellows, I swing or dance him around.

Last night, I wore a purple shirt with a plunging neckline. The shirt strategically bunched, and I wasn't wearing a bra or tape to cover my nipples. The baby roared. I cradled him against my body, sang to him in my horrendous voice, and spun in circles. After I cooed for four minutes like a goddamn pigeon, he quieted down. I slowly swayed back and forth.

I thought that I could do this, I could have a child. In ten years.

Then the baby's mouth sucked on my nipple. My titty must have peeked out when I was twirling like a circus performer. Before I could react, the dad walked into the room. I faced the door. He looked at my eyes and at his baby attached to my boob. I opened my mouth. He walked out.

He had been looking for his wife.

September 5th, 2010 7:12pm - Dirty Car

When we drove into the Auckland rugby field's parking lot for the nine-year-old's rugby game, the mom disclosed that delinquents gather there during the weekends. I saw five thirteen-year-old males drinking energy drinks and listening to music playing from a phone. "Be careful," she warned, "Just make sure none of our kids go near them." I smiled. In California, I would have seen thirteen-year-olds smoking cigarettes with condoms in their pockets. One might have had a gun.

During the game, I picked up the three-year-old by his feet and swung him in circles. He shrieked while pitching through the air. After I set him down, he begged to go again. The seven-year-old cried because she wanted a turn.

"You always do fun stuff for him," she shouted. "Never for me."

Instead of telling her that she weighs too much and my arms are too weak, I consented. I picked her up by her feet and completed two rotations. I then accidentally dropped her on her head.

I don't understand rugby. I don't know why, if you score a touchdown, it's called a try. Clearly the attempt was more than a try. After the game, when the nine-year-old asked if I was impressed by the conversion, I was confused. Three minutes later, I understood a conversion to be similar to a football field goal.

We walked towards the car, the three-year-old on my shoulders, the five-year-old holding my hand, and the nine-year-old detailing every tackle he made and interrogating my opinion on most of the plays. I play soccer. I know more about fencing than i do about rugby.

We approached the car to find the rear windshield's dirt layer transformed into a pornographic playground. Stick figures were doing sheep doggy-style. Open mouths projected moaning dialogue bubbles. "Fuck me this dirty," and "I like pussy this dirty," were scrawled into the dust next to pictures of penises.

The nine-year-old had stopped ranting about the game.

"What's pussy?" he asked.

August 26th, 2010 8:30am - August 2010 Quote of the Month

Seven-year-old: "My taste buds fell off. I felt them."

Nine-year-old: "Stupid, taste buds can't fall off. They're glued in."

August 23rd 9:40am - Standing Up Wees

In January, the two-year-old would announce he had to do wees or poos, and then he would stand, echoing the announcement, until someone told him to go to the toilet. If nobody was in the vicinity, he'd repeatedly scream, "I have to do wees," until someone replied. Once, I walked into the house to behold him standing in the kitchen screeching, "I have to go wees," on repeat.

"Go to the toilet, then!" I yelled back.

He ran to the bathroom trailing urine through his pants.

Another time, I heard him wailing, "I have to do wees." I was outside. When I entered the house a minute later, he had altered his declaration to, "I did wees." He screamingly restated, "I did wees," until I told him to stop yelling. He was standing in his own liquid waste.

In April, he turned three. By then, he was relieving himself in the bathroom, but rarely inside the toilet. His urine daily ornamented bathroom walls and floors. His secretions garnished any hanging hand towels. He would sit on the toilet seat and piss on the seat, but not inside the toilet bowl.

"You have to make sure your doodle aims into the bowl," I informed him, "Otherwise, your pee goes everywhere."

That was after I had walked into the bathroom because he was screaming my name. He was sitting on the toilet but couldn't control his penis and the direction it was spurting pee. A stream had attacked my legs. I smelled like I had intentionally bathed in urine.

The three-year-old considers himself a big boy. For seven months, he has told me, "I'm a big boy. My baby is a baby." He has a ten-month-old brother. This month, he realized that real big boys and real men pee standing up. Only little boys piss sitting down.

One afternoon when I picked him up from kindy - New Zealand's version of American pre-school - he whispered to me, "I did standing-up wees." His face looked like it had been injected with happy pills. His skin glowed. Five minutes later, I grasped that his face was just wet with pee from his roaming penis.

This morning, the three-year-old screamed, "I'm doing standing-up wees, I'm doing standing-up wees, I'm doing standing-up wees," as he sprinted for the bathroom. His mom was standing next to me. She looked like he had just confirmed that he had raped a sheep.

"Don't do wees standing up," she yelled, chasing him, "Don't do wees standing up."

I followed her, naturally.

We entered the bathroom to see his underwear and pants at his feet, marinating in piss. Pee eclipsed the bathroom. It looked like the atomic bomb of piss had exploded. Everywhere.

The mom sighed and said, "You're not big enough to do standing-up wees."

"My doodle's tiny," the three-year-old replied.

"Yes," his mom agreed. "Daddy says you have to wait until your doodle's longer before you do standing-up wees."

August 22nd 10:28pm - Stuffed Bears and Penises

When I was young and fat, I sewed. I owned a sewing machine, but also mastered the hand sewing running and whip stitches. I would arm myself with a mayonnaise, Pringles, and American cheese sandwich, decline into pillows more cushioned than my stomach, turn on the television, and sew. I fashioned stuffed animals and pillows. I spawned Christmas ornaments and aprons. I haven't sewn in fifteen years.

I boomed into the house Sunday morning radiating booze and bad decisions. I smelled like an Irish pub after the last passed-out alcoholwhore has been rolled onto the sidewalk.

Upon glimpsing my existence at the door, a screaming chorus of, "Kara, let's make stuffed animals!" greeted me. The parents were in Australia. There were four children. I staggered to the refrigerator and shoved my head into the freezer.

When I emerged from freezer revival, I suggested watching a movie.

"We're sewing stuffed animals," the seven-year-old announced as she marched between the pantry and kitchen table, issuing thread, felt, and needles like an arts and crafts store on crack.

"Let's play hide-and-seek," I proposed.

"Stuffed animals," they yelled. The three-year-old clapped his hands.

"You don't want to jump on the trampoline?"

"Stuffed animals," they shrieked.

"We could go in the pool?"

"Stuffed animals," they howled.

"What about the sand pit? Or the monkey bars? We could go across the street to the playground?"

"Stuffed animals," they screeched. The five-year-old cried.

The seven-year-old declared that we were making stuffed animals, and everyone was now ready except for me.

I almost cried. Instead, I folded a white piece of paper in half and drew a teddy bear outline. I cut it out and then elevated it for approval from the little tyrants.

"The ears are too big," the five-year-old wailed like as if I had turned on the blender with her hand inside.

I made another.

"The arms have to be bigger," the seven-year-old demanded.

My brain sobbed. I popped four Advil.

Within twenty minutes I had cut eight teddy bear sides from four different colored felts. Twenty-one minutes later, the children got bored. My fingers were sewing with the speed of a ninety-year-old with severe ADD. The seven-year-old sighed that it was taking so long. I had only sewn one quarter of one bear. She decreed it was time for morning tea. They dragged the little kid table and chairs from the playroom to the living room. The table scratched the wooden floors. I distributed muffins and bottles of juice and water by tossing them across the room. I continued sewing. After tea time, the little terrorists launched a united destruction campaign. The seven-year-old brought the bunny into the house. The five-year-old retrieved her respective collections of dolls, fairies, My Littlest Pet Shop, and stuffed animals. She dispersed them around the living room. In attempts to hold his favorite movie, Cars, the three-year-old dislocated twenty other movies. They fell from the shelf onto his head. The baby sobbed when a toy car collided with his skull. I inhaled more Advil, hurled the baby into his crib, and then sewed.

Three hours later, I exhaled exhaustion and relief. I had sewn and stuffed four teddy bears. I interrupted the shrieking and crying ruptures to tell them their stuffed animals were ready. I presented the seven-year-old with a pen and her bear.

"You can draw a face or an outfit on your bear, whatever you want," I said.

I then shuffled into the adjoining room to pick up the toy explosion, DVD's, and bunny feces. I returned to the kitchen three minutes later. The seven-year-old had drawn in permanent pen on all four of the bears. She had drawn nipples and penises.

August 17th, 2010 4:38pm - Quotebook: Five Kids

* Seven-year-old: "Kara, why do you have little hairs under your arms?"

Me: "Because I apparently need to shave."

Seven-year-old: "Why do you have hair on your face?"

Me: "Because I'm a woman!"

Seven-year-old: "I thought only men were hairy."

Me: "Yes, well, I'm hairy too."

* Me (to the three-year-old): "How'd you sleep last night? I hope you slept well for your first day of kindy!"

Three-year-old: "I didn't sleep last night. There were bears in the street. I saw them."

Me: "Baby, there aren't bears in New Zealand."

* Three-year-old: "Mum, teeth are like raisons."

The mom: "Teeth are like raisons? That's what you said?"

Three-year-old: "Yes, they're small and little and go in your mouth."

* Three-year-old: "My doodle can play tricks!"

* Five-year-old: "Kara, when the baby's grown up, you should marry him."

Me: "Oh, hunny, he's too young for me."

Five-year-old: "Then you should marry my older brother. He's nine."

Nine-year-old: "We can't get married, stupid. People who are related have messed up babies."

* The mom (to the three-year-old): "Don't do wees standing up!"

Three-year-old: "I'm sorry, I did standing up wees."

(Pee everywhere)

The mom: "You're not big enough to do standing up wees."

Three-year-old: "My doodle's tiny."

The mom: "Yes, Daddy says you have to wait until your doodle's longer before you do standing up wees."

* Seven-year-old: "I'm going to travel around the world and then go to California and find a man."

* Seven-year-old: "I don't want Mummy to be a grandma."

Me: "Why's that?"

Seven-year-old: "I don't want her to have wrinkles."

* Three-year-old (grabs my crotch): "Kara, do you have a doodle?"

Me: "No, no, we've been over this. Boys have doodles. Girls don't."

Three-year-old: "Mummy has a doodle."

Me: "No, your mummy doesn't have a doodle. Your daddy does."

Three-year-old: "Mummy's doodle is growing. I saw it."

* Nine-year-old: "Do you know dentists?"

Me: "Yes, I know dentists."

Nine-year-old: "I don't think I could be a dentist."

Me: "Why not?"

Nine-year-old: "I don't like teeth. I'd vomit in people's mouths."

* Three-year-old: "I love you and I love my toast."

* Three-year-old: "When I'm nine, I'll be a real man with a real guitar."

* Me: "What do you want to do this afternoon?"

Three-year-old: "Touch a cloud."

* Three-year-old: "I don't like my baby's hair like that."

Me: "What do you want his hair to be like?"

Three-year-old: "To be handsome like mine."

August 14th 12:10pm - Kids Making Porn

When I arrived in New Zealand in January, the seven-year-old I look after didn't like changing in public. At the beach, she requested I hold a towel around her while she changed. She called it a changing circuit. Simultaneously, her five-year-old sister dug a hole in the sand and pissed in it with hundreds of onlookers.

The seven-year-old was an innocent cherub. Now she's crafty and sexually curious. In the past week, she's mentioned penises to me. She's asked why I have smaller boobs than her daddy. She's said the word fuck. One of her relatives recently told me she's probably going to be a tramp in eight years.

Once a week, I drive the girls to swimming lessons. This week, they beseeched their mom to take them.

"All Kara does is read or sleep. She doesn't even watch us," they moaned.I don't watch them because, with my 20/400 vision, I can't tell which ones they are. The last time I smiled and made eye contact with one of the swimmers, it was with a particularly feminine boy. I thought it was one of the girls. The other reason I don't watch them is because watching arms and backs progress up and down lap pool lanes isn't fantastically captivating. I'd rather sleep at swimming to avoid falling asleep while driving home. I've crashed into a curb with the girls in the car before. I woke up to them screaming.

Their mom wanted to spend time with her son, the eldest child. Instead of going to the lesson, she supplied me with a camera and instructions to take photos. I took seven sweeping photos of the pool, encompassing every swim group in the place. I assume the girls were in some of them. I then fell asleep sitting up.

During the drive home, the five-year-old cried because the seven-year-old told her she couldn't be in a club that she had yet to create. The seven-year-old screamed because her sister took off her shoe and threw it at her. The five-year-old bawled when her sister said her best friend was their three-year-old brother. I gave them the camera to review the pictures I had taken. My brain waves then ceased conscious thought. I drifted into the awake yet detached state of being that has evolved over the past seven months of babysitting five children.

Five minutes later, when I again became responsive, I realized that the seven-year-old had been taking photos. Of her bare ass. When I confiscated the camera, the five-year-old shrieked that she hadn't had a picture taken of her posterior yet.

"It's not fair," she cried.

Before I returned the camera to the mom, I inspected and deleted the photos. The beginning ones were of the car's interior, then through the window shots of passing bicyclists, a tree, and the street, followed by the inside of their mouths, their baby breasts, and the seven-year-old's ass. One was of her vagina.

August 12th 9:32am - August 2010 Photo of the Month

Location: Coromandel Peninsula, overlooking Cathedral Cove, Gemstone Bay, and Stingray Bay, New Zealand

August 10th, 2010 10:34pm - Blindness and Depression

One of my friends has 20/10 vision. Last year, the US Navy recorded my eyesight at 20/400.

My eyes commenced their eventual decline into blindness when I was twelve. At thirteen, one of my teachers assembled a desk for me and stationed it four feet away from the blackboard. The desk was a cardboard box. I sat on the classroom floor. By nineteen, my friends rarely allowed me to drive my own car. My vision equates that of an inebriated mole. Anyone with superior optics than me is a driving legend. It's not hard to accomplish.

Upon my arrival in New Zealand as a laborer for a family with five children, the mom divulged that if I stayed a year, they would pay for LASIK eye surgery. The dad is one of the leading opthamologists in the country. They would give me the gift of sight. So, I stayed. I endured through vomit in my hair and clothes. I persisted after holding child excrement in my hands. I continued through screaming fights, punches, and kicks. I've been scratched and bitten. I wanted free corrective eye surgery.

Three years ago, an initial LASIK consult in California revealed that I wasn't a candidate. My corneas are too thin. The mom assured me that New Zealand has the leading LASIK technology in the world. The Eye Institute would fix my eyes.

I went to the consultation as hopeful as the time I returned home to find a new car in the driveway. With a bow. I was sixteen and my dad had called me back. My brother was filming. I shrieked the cry of a girl in ecstasy for five minutes. And then my dad told me it was a rental car while his car was at the mechanics.

During one of the many eye tests, I looked into a machine. Everything was black, except for a red laser light that attacked my eyes with mad-dog persistence. My eyes watered. Without stopping. For five minutes. The optometrist couldn't obtain a clear read. However, twenty minutes later, he announced that the combination of my corneas and eyesight rendered operation impossible. My corneas are too thin, and my eyesight too bad. He wouldn't operate on me for three million dollars. I'd probably be blind after the surgery.

I sighed and drove to the preschool to pick up the three-year-old.

When he saw me, he fired his arms around my neck and asked, "Are your eyes still broken?"

August 3rd 12:40pm - Mini Titans and Underwear

The following week at Mini Titans, the little boys jumped off the stage, tackled each other, and rocketed objects at each other's heads. After a ball collided with the three-year-old's temple, he lay prostrate on the floor. I was concerned for his brain and concussion possibility.

As I elevated myself from the bench to check the little boy for traumatic head injury, Coach screamed at him, "Are you a sissy? Are you a little girl?"

When the three-year-old didn't move, I began jogging towards his debilitated limbs.

Coach yelled, "You're a little girl who wears pink undies," and the three-year-old launched into the air.

"I am not," he cried. "They're stripeys!"

He nosedived his pants to the floor, revealing green and blue striped underwear.