A Day At The Park

I just came back from an adventure; taking William and McKayla to the park. Everyone always assumes I'm their Mother. I must have the look of someone worn, too busy to fix themselves up and carrying extra post-pregnancy weight. I arrive at the apartment with a ton of trepidation, because Lauren- their Mother and my friend since pretty much the beggining of time- has the fortune of posessing a mounted, taxidermy deer head which she proudly displays on the living room wall of their tiny apartment. In Glen Burnie, MD. Allow me to repeat, their apartment in Glen Burnie, MD. I have never seen the corpse hanging on the wall there- I make her take it down before I come over due to my ridiculousness.The idea of it two rooms away in a closet actually freaks me out. I used to have panic attacks walking through her living room when she lived near me with her parents due to several deer (one of which is actually the one residing with her at her apartment now), a wild boar and squirrels who were all murdered, stuffed and slated to stare at me marble-eyed as I attempted to avoid looking at them at all costs while running through her living room. Ah, the days of my childhood. Anyway...

I arrive at their apartment with lunch and Christmas presents in tow on January 9th. I'm fully aware that I'm very late. I've not only missed Christmas but I'm heading straight for Valentines day. I have a slight moment where I think "Maybe I'll just wait until August, then I can have an all inclusive Christmas/NewYears/ValentinesDay/Birthday extravaganza!!!" Yes, I know I'm a terrible person. Yes, I know that my Godkids need to see me more than holidays. (In my defense, though, I'm not Catholic. bad-dum-bum.) So, the kids. First we eat chik-fil-a while William sleeps and McKayla shows off her superior knowledge. She learned the word Proclamation from Cinderella and now walks around spouting it as though she has any clue how to use it. She has also learned how to copy my voice. She has learned to copy my voice very well, to the point that if she wasn't 2 1/2 I might be offended. My voice is a little distinctive and a little like a 5 year olds sometimes- a fact that I hate- and she nails it. She certainly has a talent for mimickry, the little shit... and I mean that in the nicest of ways. So basically she's picking on me and swinging the windchime I bought for her mother around the room- trying with all her might to ruin it in the first 5 minutes of it's new life by trying to feed it to their cat. If the artist who made it would have know he probably would have left that particular stream of consciousness in his mind as oppossed to creating it for the sole purpose of it being makeshift meow mix. Finally, William wakes up, Kay stops making fun of me and we get ready and go to the park. On the way out we see a crazy neighbor carrying his overnight bag and walking freely to an ambulance parked outside of his door. A Fire Engine is also there and the driver looks pissed. It's pretty clear that this is not the emergency they were expecting. We make it through the non-chaos and let me tell you it's odd to see emergency vehicles just chilling while some guy uses them as a cab. When we finally get to the park we're only there for about 30 minutes before McKayla, refusing to use the port-a-potty- pees all over the slide and herself. We pack up and high-tail it out of the park as to avoid any additional embarassment, but sure enough McKayla- no more than 2 feet away from me- yanks down her pants stands on the curb and refuses to let anyone touch her until we let her jump. She smiles her satan smile and says "I!!!.... 2!!!!...." She then waits for Lauren and I to finish, thus giving her premission to launch her naked self through the air. I don't think two grown women have ever screamed "3!!!" so loudly or impatiently in their lives. She jumps. Then we pull her pants up, stuff her and her brother into the car and race home. Not 10 minutes before the urine incident I was actually thinking "Wow, I could have a kid one day." However, it seems to me that I exhausted all of my mental energy just taking them to the park - with their mother. I was just a bystander and I felt the brain-numbing stress kids put on you. So, while I love my Godkids more than I can say- children, monkeys, dogs- anything with urine-embarassment potential is not in my near future.