The Princess Diaries, Chapter 4

I babysat the other day for Kate and Max, while LAJ attended a meeting at their co-op school. Dima was on a business trip to Moscow, so I, the cavalry, arrived around bedtime to see if I could mind the kids for an hour and a half.

Kate is 4 and Max is 2, and a year ago if Laura left even so much as the room, Max would cry and cry, while Kate would be pretty nonplussed. Somehow, in the last year, the roles have started to reverse a little.

I set up in the kids' bedroom, ready to read stories, but poor LAJ had to basically peel Kate off of her leg in order to leave. And so, Kate commenced an operatic demonstration of the immense agony of separation. It was really something to behold. For a few minutes I waited to see if she would calm down, but she had some real stamina. So I began reading Max a story in Russian.

Now, my Russian is extremely rusty, and even in a book for a 2-year-old there will be a lot of words I don't know. So, I kept having to slow down to sound out words. It turns out that it's even *more* boring to be a 2-year-old listening to an adult sound out words than it is to be an adult listening to a 4 or 5 year old sound out words. Max all but said, "Dude, you're the adult here- why can't you read?"

So, I could see him starting to lose focus, and watch the show Late was putting on, which, to be fair, was a pretty impressive show. Finally Max turned to me and said, "Can you help my big sister?" I looked at him and said, "Well, I think she still needs to be sad for a while. But she'll be ok."

Hearing this, Kate calmed down for a moment, the better to overhear what was being said about her. But once she realized I was done, she let out the longest, highest-pitched wail I have ever heard. I actually laughed. I said, "Kate, you sure are working awfully hard over there. Doesn't that take a lot of energy?"

At this, she started to crack a smile mid-wail, before then realizing that she was breaking character, and resuming a full-throated wail. At this, Max turned to me and said, "Can you help my big sister, PLEASE?"

After a couple vain attempts to persuade Kate to abandon the histrionics, Max looked at me and said, "Maybe we can wait for Mommy in the TV room." I thought that was a perfectly good solution, so we invited Kate to join us, and then headed into the TV room. The wailing stopped as soon as we were down the hall.

But she never did join us. After 10 minutes in the TV room, we went back to the bedroom to discover that Kate had climbed up into her bed and fallen asleep. I guess it really did take a lot of work to be sad.

Max, however, had not burned up any energy on theatrics, and he proceeded to motor around the TV room for an hour. At the end of that, he suggested we wait in the living room, on the sofa. So I joined him there, and immediately felt exhausted. He was wide awake and alert though, and verified that each passing car was not mom's car.

After a while, I turned to him and said, "Aren't you just a little bit tired? It's getting late." Max's response: "No."

And so we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Verifying cars the entire time. Finally I asked again (because I was starting to fall asleep), "Are you SURE you're not the least bit tired? You could lay in your bed and wait for mommy there." Max's response: "No."

He did, however, suggest we move to the kitchen, where he proceeded to demolish all the ham and cheese left over from dinner. And that's where LAJ finally found us- sitting at the kitchen table eating ham and pondering life, as men are wont to do. He was very excited to see her.

Honestly, I have no idea how parents manage...