The Sky is Falling!!

I have a very active imagination, mixed in with a generous amount of paranoia. I always have. When I was younger, maybe 12, my parents would leave me to look after my younger sisters for a few hours occasionally. They would give me a time, say 9 pm, when they would probably be home. I was totally fine the whole evening, unless they happen to not be home on or before 9. Then, all bets are off. My mind ran wild with irrational thoughts like, maybe they were in an accident or there was a plane that hit the building they were in. Maybe they were held hostage in a robbery or ANYTHING that could go wrong outside the safety of home I would imagine was going on. They always came back, clearly, and my fears were always calmed, but every once in a while I will still get fear that something is amiss. This usually happened really late at night while everyone else was asleep. I could SWEAR that someone was trying to get in through my window. Once, I even had my dad check it. Each time this happened, I would like awake, extremely still, trying not to alert these invisible "robbers", and listen for any sound that would prove my theory correct. I even thought that someone was in the basement. I tried to find a makeshift weapon (a steel wire brush, in this case) and searched the basement, then the whole house and all the locks and windows. I then proceeded to take that weapon with me to bed. I swear, I just need to by my own baseball bat just for my sanity.

Wow, this really makes me sound like a nut job, huh? See, this is why I don't divulge these kinds of fears. I swear they've got a padded cell just waiting for me somewhere. There is an actually reason for these frobbery fears. We were robbed before, though never at night. Somehow they did it during the day and got away with it. How is that possible? I'll never know. My brother's Jeep was also broken into and because he was in Iraq and no one drove it, it wasn't noticed for at least a week. This kind of crap does happen, unfortunately.

Anywho, there is a point for this background story. I have been recently working at a bakery in a Reams in Layton. So I get to work at 6 am (oh, the horror, the horror!) and notice that no one is there. My boss, Mark, usually shows up around 5 am to get things jump started. This particular morning, however, it looked like all the breads, donuts, and rolls were already done. Curious. I looked around everywhere for Mark or anyone, but not a soul was in sight. Not even the people who cut up the meat next to the bakery (p.s. there is a whole other world going on behind the scenes of Reams that I had no idea about. Crasazy!). So, I just started doing dishes that were left from yesterday. In the back of my mind, however, I had this illogical thought that maybe all the other employees were being held hostage somewhere in the store and I just barely missed the guys with guns taking people away. It totally burst my horrid thought bubble, though, when I was one of the employees walking past. Yup. I'm just nuts. Another bakery employee showed up about 6:30 and she found a note on the counter from Mark that he had worked through the night so he could get other things done during the day. Yeah...so I completely missed the note because of my unnecessary panic. Moron! I totally need to get my head examined.

p.s. I also had another crazy thought, though almost as scary, that my married boss was having an affair with the 65-year-old Hispanic bakery employee and they were hiding in the walk-in fridge waiting for me to leave so they could come out. I AM ABSOLUTELY NUTS!!!!!! Seriously. Also, not a pretty image.....

p.p.s. Christmas music is meant to get you in the spirit and make you all merry and stuff, right? Ahem, yeah. Listening to countless bad versions of once-loved Christmas songs 8 hours a day for 5 days actually has the opposite effect. It's made me very Grinch-like and crabby. Just thinking about it makes me want to flog EVERY SINGLE ARTIST who made me listen to their stupid songs. If I hear "The Christmas Song" one more time, I'm gonna hurl, scream and viciously attack the singer simultaneously. Won't THAT be a pretty sight. Ick.

Adventures in Babysitting

Direct your eye gaze slightly to the left and you will see an adorable pic of my niece, Addy, who is trying to avoid the lens of my camera phone. I must say, 2-year-olds are incredibly funny. I ended up babysitting last night and it was anything but boring. And so it began. Shantel (my sister) and her husband, Joe, (said parents of 2-year-old) had just left for a business dinner, so I was in charge of feeding myself and Addy. I took the lazy way and reheated mac and cheese and microwaved spring rolls. Yup. (My fellow culinarians have scheduled my flogging for next Thursday). Addy so adorably asked for a movie, so we watched "Meet the Robinsons" on my laptop (I had downloaded it on Limewire a while back. Don't tell!) while we ate. Such a simple dinner somehow lasted over an hour, mostly because Addy was so enthralled by the movie that she would forget to eat, meaning I had to prod her every few minutes to "take a bite". She also has a tendency to fill up on milk, so I had to monitor her milk consumption as we watched the movie. Following dinner, Addy asked for some chocolate, which her dad had promised she could have if she ate (plus, you can't deprive a girl of chocolate. It's inhumane!).

Anywho, after dinner, we ventured downstairs to play. Addy is pretty good about keeping herself occupied, so I decided to check my e-mail and stuff. I would glance over every few minutes to make sure she was still within sight and not destroying anything. She mostly played with her toy kitchen, Barbie tent, and strange tunnel that resembles a large spring covered in pink fabric. At one point, she was walking around inside the tunnel and, unable to see, she did a spectacular face-plant right in front of me. I had to laugh. She's resilient, so I wasn't worried about her being hurt. She just laughed it off. Unfortunately for me, I decided to get inside the tunnel and "hide" from Addy. I promptly got stuck and somehow appeared to be an intruder to the dog, AJ the Black Lab, who barked incessantly, even after I had managed to extract myself from the tunnel. Since the barking continued, I, forgetting I was in the presence of a 2-year-old, said to the dog, "AJ, SHUT UP!". Addy quickly said, "You said 'shut up'", which in the Van Wagoner household, is a "bad word", or phrase, in this case. Bad aunt. Bad, bad aunt. I did, however, seem to say "the bad phrase" once more, again to the dog. Once again, I was caught by the ears of the 2-year-old. Bad aunt.

After that, Addy decided she wanted to play Foosball (sp?), which of course, she doesn't really know how to play. She was standing on some boxes of Christmas decorations on one side and I was on the other. To Addy, the point of the game was to place the ball directly in front of one of the players and give it a tap. However, any time I attempted to actually "kick" the ball toward the goal, she felt the need to pick up the ball. No matter how hard I tried to tell her to keep the ball on the table, she continued to pick it up. At that point, I just started to keep the ball away from her by "kicking" the ball back and forth. Did I mention I'm a bad aunt? Messing with a child. Horrible of me. She did manage to catch the ball one time and she decided to toss the ball into the air and let it land on the foosball table. However, as she was tossing the ball, she promptly fell into the box she was standing on. I laughed, of course, while I was trying to see if she was hurt (Shouldn't it be the other way around?). She was fine, fortunately. It's a good thing she doesn't bruise easily...

Next on the agenda was another movie. "Cinderella", she decided. A classic, so I consent. Once again, I find myself in the realms of the internet, while keeping an eye on Addy. I have been reading the blog of the author of the trilogy I am reading, Libba Bray. She is friggin hilarious and such an incredible writer. Her blog makes me laugh out loud at times and I did so a few times as we were watching the movie. To Addy, my laughing was a signal that something funny was going on in the movie, meaning she should laugh, too. It was a fake and adorable laugh that only made me laugh harder. Goll, I love her! Tel and Joe returned later, raving about the restaurant they went to, Bucca de Beppo's. Sound good. I can't imagine what the appeal of pork with blueberry sauce is, though. As Joe was talking to Addy, she unexpectedly decided to use the previously mentioned "bad phrase". The question is always, "Where did you hear that?" and I remained silent. Bad aunt.

And so, there is my evening with the cutest, funniest, most adorable 2-year-old ever. I hope I'm not a bad influence on her.... ; )

p.s. Libba Bray's blog has made me want to write more on here, so you haven't heard the last of me.