R-A-K

Recently I was thinking about kids and the serious changes that happen to a couple when a baby arrives. I look at blogs of friends and strangers and see the sheer magnitude of work and love that comes from having children. I developed an idea for Kent and I to give it a try. I call it Rent-A-Kid or RAK for short. Is it a tad tacky and impersonal; sure it is. I could think of a whole bunch of worse situations I could put myself in, so RAK is actually a good plan for many reasons. 1) It allows us to get a small glimpse of the functions of having a child. 2) We are able to see new things through a child's eyes and our future with little people. 3) It is totally fun because at the end of the exhausting day I can send the sweet, tired, over sugared little one back to their parents. I think of us as being super young and trendy Grandparents.

The first RAK experiment was with my sweet little Freddie, the son of Kent's DEKE Brother Fred from college. He is about 3 1/2 and so much fun. He is all boy; loves robots, video games and his bulldog Penny. He runs smack dab into a wall and just picks himself up and continues on. I decided that I wanted to go to a pumpkin patch and that it would be great if Kent and I took Freddie. Once I called Fred and got the OK it was game on. I did a little research and found the perfect place, Remlinger Farms in Carnation WA. We picked a date and then fear set in. I started thinking to myself...this is an hour drive from Seattle, can we handle this? I thought about actually just taking him to my local QFC as the parking lot has been transitioned into a make believe pumpkin patch. Deciding this was taking the easy road I called in additional resources; my parents. I figured that this was also a good idea for me to test out their abilities to be Grandparents and for us to see how much coercion it was going to take for them to babysit our kids. Bob and Shirley took the bait, like practically jumped at the chance.

So the day came and we were both tired and a little hung over. We had a party at our house and the guests didn't leave until after 1am. We were to be at Freddie's house at 11am. We rolled in and found him playing video games in his jammies. We ate breakfast together and then I helped him get dressed. That was my first lesson I learned that day. Kids, or maybe just this kid, likes to put both his arms and head into the shirt all at once. This became my first note to self of the day. We wrangled the car seat into my car (which apparently is equipped well with stuff for a car seat) got Freddie all situated and we were off.


The first few minutes Freddie was just sitting there. He was all bundled up...jacket, hat and mittens attached but not on his hands. It was a little chilly, but I was thinking to myself that this kid has to be roasting. He giggled a little and then chatted to himself and then the kicking of my seat started. I found myself constantly trying to see him in my mirror to make sure he hadn't somehow put a huge hunk of crap in his mouth and was choking. He would see me and smile. We talked about the beautiful color of leaves...red, orange, yellow. At one point we thought we were lost so we put him on the lookout for a bridge we were suppose to cross. The ride there was perfect. We pulled up to the parking lot and looked at each other like...here we go.

I started pulling him out of his car seat and Freddie said, "I'm sweaty." I knew it! I stripped him down a bit and then grabbed his backpack that had so much crap in it I just started laughing. He looked at me and I asked him if he wanted to wear it and he said yes. After we put it on him we realized he was barely able to stand, let alone walk, because he was so weighted down. Realizing this was probably for us to carry we took it off him...and his energy quickly returned. We found my parents and started off for the pumpkin fields. We had parked in a different lot and I knew it was going to be a bit of a walk, like maybe 1/4 of a mile, but I figured this kid has serious energy. Well this kid did great, but half way there he was tired and looked and me and said, "carry me." Good God these kids are like dead weight. I thought I was strong, but man, they get heavy quickly. We finally made it to the field and Freddie wasn't really into it. He was more into the stick he found and hitting the pumpkins with it. We (my parents..ha) picked and purchased a pumpkin for Freddie and a little pumpkin for his sister. He ran through the corn maize and was having a good day, but a tiring day. We had a little lunch and discovered he was more into chicken strips then grilled cheese and ketchup should be classified as a food, not a condiment. He ate enough to be qualified as a small cup of soup.

It was time to leave the patch and hit the road. He said good-bye to my mom Shirley as he loved to say her name. He looked at Kent and I and said, "I want to go in Shirley's car." My Mother has this things with kids. She instantly bonded with him and started playing games with him in the first 5 minutes. I told Freddie another day and we buckled him up and took off. Three minutes later he fell asleep.



Freddie was fabulous. We were so tired though that I literally thought I was going to need to sleep for 14 hours straight! My mom called me the next day and said she had so much fun, she wanted to do it again. She thought the zoo would be a good idea. I told her "woah lady!", then I realized that my RAK idea may have released that inner Grandparent in her. I think I'll give her Freddie's telephone number and they can become buddies for awhile. Kent and I still have some fun to be had, some selfish times to be had and an open road to discover. These ovaries and kicking something out every month...one day we will make that U-turn towards kids. For now though my RAK little one's are filling the need. Thanks Freddie!

PS...Freddie I now realize it is common for little people to be afraid of those big scary adult bathrooms. You held your pee for 6 hours and Aunt Lisa was worried about your bladder and shouldn't have offered to let you pee in the parking lot. Second note to self...