Adventures in babysitting

I had a kid to babysit last night. And no the kid was not my sister. That might have been easier actually, and that's saying something cause as much as I love Caitlin she can be the biggest brat sometimes.

But she's my sister so I know exactly how to handle her, how to calm her down, and if the need is very great I know exactly how to make her realise just how much trouble she's in. She tends to calm herself down in that case. Scary Chloe is scary, or so I'm told.

So this kid. He's cute, he really is, but by God do you need to be full of energy. He's three years old and he's a smart one. Funny how that doesn't seem like such a great quality when you're the one being manipulated.

Manipulated. By a three year old boy. Great Chloe. Cause that's really all a girl needs to make her feel good about herself.

Although at first everything was going fine really. We played with some playdough for a little while, then we went down to his neighbour friend (a nine year old boy who liked to talk a lot about his love and talent for video game warfare), and then I gave him a bath and fed him.

All was going according to plan.

And then I tried to but him to bed. He didn't like that. At all. He really really didn't. He started howling for his mother, because he wanted her to put him to bed and not me. He finally seemed to be asking himself who this strange girl in the glasses was.

So I did what any other babysitter confronted with a screaming child would do. I called his mother. And luckily for me she was almost finished work so I didn't have to deal for very long.

I enjoy babysitting because hey! Kids are usually easy for me to handle and it's money. Money is always nice. But I really really don't ever want to have kids of my own. I don't think I could bear the thought of having to babysit a child for eighteen to (lets be honest here) maybe forty years.

Babysitting yes. Motherhood no.

An angry rant

Thank God for you Ciosa. And thank God for our uncle. Two members of our family that I hardly ever see. Truly, I mean I see you about one or twice every three years, and I haven't seen our uncle in at least six.

I feel like the two of you are the only ones in our family who care sometimes. The only ones that I can actually complain to, without having to suffer some sort of judgement.

As you can see I'm angry this evening. Even I'm not all that sure why. Although no one has noticed you know. My mum never does. Once I spent an entire evening not speaking a single word to her. Why? Because she was mistreating one of of MY books that I had lent to her. And after I asked her to please be careful she gave out to me because she was "stressed out". Sorry mum. Sorry for caring about my stuff.

I haven't lent her a book since.

I can complain to you endlessly, Ciosa, and if I'm in the wrong you just tell me, quietly, by explaining gently why. You don't give out, you don't tut and insinuate how simple minded I am. You don't make me feel subhuman and abnormal.

That's how everyone else makes me feel sometimes. Like I'm an idiot and I'm worth nothing. Sometimes I wonder if one day someone is going to come up to me and say flat out to my face "you think wrong, you act wrong, you are wrong".

And then I'm going to snap and punch that person in the face.

God bless you Ciosa anyway. And maybe send an email to our uncle. He makes me feel better, maybe he can give you some solid advice on life too.

Happy Birthday to me

It's my birthday today. I'm nineteen years old. I don't know when this happened. In my head I stopped growing up at 17. So yeah. This feels weird.

I loath birthdays. I have for a while. They just generally suck. Immensely. AT least in my experience. I also hate growing up so obviously that doesn't help all that much.

It's also not the best of birthdays cause I have an exam this evening. Happy birthday clo.

It's ok apart from that though. A friend brought me a mini cake to school, and lots of people have been wishing me happy birthday which is cool.

I also got a new thermos and a pair of earrings. And I'm going to the cinema tonight with some friends after my exam to see warm bodies.

So all is not lost.

I just can't wait for today to be over so that it can stop being my birthday.

Humanity

People have a tendency to piss me off. Well People. If you want to be even more general you could say that humanity, as a species, pisses me off immensely.

I don't know. People are crazy and weird and complicated. And I know that there is no sense to be made but still.

Mankind places itself at the centre of the universe, and walks on everything else. Mankind considers everything that is not man, or at least man made, to be inferior.

Only human suffering is taking into account. Now in no way am I saying that human suffering isn't important, and something that we should try to stop. I'm just saying that maybe we should take other creatures suffering into account as well.

Chickens are often kept cooped up practically one on top of the other. Picture a square metre space. Now fill it with about twelve chickens maybe even more. That's how they live! If those conditions are imposed on a human being a shit storm goes down (quite right too), but not for the chickens? What makes us better than them?

Honestly? Nothing at all.

Humanity treats what isn't human as if it's worth nothing. But it's worth so much. And we're losing it all slowly but surely because we are, as a species, arrogant and fairly stupid.

Some days I get real tired of humanity.

Daddy's Girl

I love my dad. I'm not sure I've ever written about him here before. I know I must have mentioned him, and I'm pretty sure I've talked about my mum (whom I love as well).

My dad is brilliant. He actually really and truly is. I don't even know I can begin to explain what he's like.

He's a hippy for one. And I don't mean that in a hipster "oh I love the 60's" kind of way. No what I mean by that is that he does what he loves, he's never cared about money (and what I mean by this is that he doesn't want money for the sake of being rich and having money), and the only materiel things that he would ever really want to keep for sure are his kayaks and surf boards.

He's a fricking dude. A surfer hippy dude.

He does a lot of kayaking, just like my brother. In fact my dad in my brothers trainer. It's all they ever do really. Pretty sure they even dream about kayaking at night.

I talked to my dad yesterday for the first time in about two weeks. Not for any bad reasons, it's just cause I live away from home and he's not real good for picking up the phone. And I'm probably not going to see him in ages either. This makes me kind of sad.

I wish we hung out more, just him and I. Cause as silly as it sounds it's better when it's just the two of us. When someone else joins the equation (anyone at all) it's just not the same.

And unfortunately people usually do join the equation. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that when we're with other people we don't really talk much, or do anything. But when its just the two of us I can tell him anything at all. And I usually do when the occasion presents itself.

Basically what I'm saying is that I'm a daddy's girl. Or I used to be. Or I sometimes am.

I miss him is really what the point is here.

Saint Patrick's day

Well I hope you all had a lovely Saint Patrick's day. I also you hope that you won't all be too hungover tomorrow because lets be honest : the majority of you got at least a little drunk.

Woo Saint Paddy's day.

I did not get drunk. I do not get drunk you see. Not even on Saint Patrick's day. I am a sober person, or as some other people would say, I'm a boring person.

Bleh.

My family thinks I'm an alien. So do many of my friends. They're not entirely sure how I can possibly be Irish (because yes, I am in fact Irish).

Whatever. I had a good day in any case, and I'm pretty sure that's the point, as opposed to just getting completely hammered for the sake of it.

Cheers.

Party Time

Its party time in the Sheridan household, and there's a lot of people just chatting away in my kitchen. There's food and booze and everyone is having a grand old time.

Why the party? Well it's my mum and stepdads annual saint Patricks party (and yes I am aware that saint Patricks day is tomorrow, not today), and on Monday it's my stepdads birthday.

Two birds. One stone.

There's a lot of people down there. I say down there cause I am currently hiding away in my bedroom with my cat and my computer. I'm such a wonderfully social human being.

I hate parties. I really do. I'm going to be 19 years old in a week and I've been to a grand total of two student parties. The first cause it was to celebrate one of my best friends birthday, and the second cause I managed to convince myself that if I socialised a little maybe I'd "get a life". That didn't really work out for me.

All the other parties that I've "been to" have been thrown by a family member. So I can do what I'm doing now, i.e hide away in my bedroom with the cat and a computer.

God bless the Internet.

I don't like parties cause I don't like being surrounded by so many people that I don't know. I don't like to drink. And I'm quite bad at small talk. Parties just make me feel generally uncomfortable.

So Saturday 16th of march, half past eight, and thirty minutes into the party. Only four or so more hours to go. Joy.