the story behind ovaries being squozen.

If I promise to never talk about the kids I babysit for ever again will you bear with me and read this?

I babysit for the cutest thing in the world, a little one and a half year old named Nina. Whenever I am with her, my instincts to produce baby after baby grows by leaps and bounds, and I find it hard not to jump the bones of her father. Well, not that hard, but come on, his genes produced the world's cutest baby, at least, she's cute to me, and for pete's sake, he's tall.

Everyday when I come over she immediately wants to pull my wallet out of my purse. I don't blame her. It's a fascinating array of cards, receipts, money, coins, my passport, my bus pass, etc. I don't understand why she always has to look at it (it doesn't change too much from day to day and it's been more than six months of this "routine"), but she is determined to, and will not do anything else, so I've learned to arrive and expect it. I just sit and chat with her parents about stuff until she tires of the game.

The game is there's three things that have my picture on them. None of them look alike, and only one looks like the me she's most familar with (my streaky blonde highlights on my UPASS). The others are my passport (taken five years ago) and my Columbia College I.D., which I think was also five years ago, but in it, my hair is long and thick and wild.

One of the first times she opened my passport she pointed at the picture of me and said confidently, "Ra-Ra." Ra-Ra AKA her cousin Rachel, had recently visited and nina had developed a habit of pointing out who was who in all the pictures in the house, like those on the fridge, etc. So when I said, "No! That's not Ra-Ra! That's me, Christine!" the surprise at being wrong must have rewired her brain or something. She closed it and went on to the next thing. I suppose I should add that I really do resemble Ra-Ra, though I'm sure the thought of that to the thirteen year old would just be devastating.

The next time I came over, she went for my wallet, which at the time she didn't know how to say so she just reached into my purse and grabbed it. We all laughed. She liked this response. She then opened it, poked around inside and found my passport. She opened to the photograph and paused for a second, considering (remembering?) and looked up at me. She then smiled, like the cheesiest smile you ever saw, like she knew full well what she was about to do, and pointing to my picture, she asked, "Ra-Ra?"

I laughed. Eerily. "No, that's not Ra-Ra," I said, "That's me, Christine." This was also before she could say my name (the cheery and shortcutted "Teen!" egads, the squeezing is just too much!). She closed it and moved on to my UPASS, which she pointed at and then pointed at me. "Yes, that's me." When it came to my Columbia I.D., she would just look at it with some intrigue and then move on.

Months of this same routine have cemented this in her mind. Now she says "wallet" and "dollar" and "money" and "all gone (when my coin pouch is empty)" and of course, "teen!" and much more. She still makes that devious grin every time she attempts to suggest that my picture could be Rachel's, and it is still just as cute and adorable as the second time, when I realized she liked the idea of being wrong and playing a game with me.

So imagine my surprise after one morning when nina and I met Deanna for coffee, Deanna, with her long hair down, Deanna, who she'd seen before, but not in a while, Deanna who repeated her fervent "chair!" with equal fervor; Deanna became part of the game.

That Columbia I.D.? The one that didn't look like the me she'd ever known? When we came home, nina went for my wallet, did the usual Ra-Ra fakeout, pulled everything out and then paused over my Columbia I.D., the picture of me with my long hair down, obscuring my face, and she said a word I hadn't heard pass her lips before. Dan-nah, she said. I looked at her quizzically. She repeated it, two or three more times, then pointed towards the door, towards outside, towards the bus and the Starbucks where we'd just come from and I was astonished. Firstly that this little being could communicate with me with such limited speech and a gesture, and that I knew what she was talking about. Then, that she was right again, I did sort of look like Deanna, with my long hair down.

And the thing is, I've known a lot of kids, seen a lot of kids grow up, learn, be who they were, but none of them come close (not even Rachel--not Ra-Ra, a different little girl from when I was a nanny--who I adored) to inspiring the sort of awe and amazement that I have for nina and how she's developed and learned. I mean, when she was twelve months old, I taught her how to blow bubbles from a wand by telling her that it was like doing the sign (from a Baby Sign Language Book) for the word hot. You purse your lips and blow. And she understood and was able to produce bubbles.

So when I say my ovaries are squozen, it's not just the timing (me being closer to 30 than ever before!), it's really the amazement of the uber smart wunderkid named nina. okay, thanks for reading.