Dear Old Man Who Lives Across the Street, Part 3

Dear Old Man Who Lives Across the Street,

I have a fabulous neighborly idea.

I know how you are probably on a fixed income, so I've been thinking of ways I could help you out in this crappy economy. I'm SO thoughtful, right? Anways, I really don't know how to ask you this in a non-awkward way, so I'm just gonna come out and ask...

How would you like to be my nanny, or...uh...ahem...manny?

It's a brilliant plan. I mean, let's think about it for a sec:

• My boys don't have grandparents close, and you NEVER have company, much less grandchildren.
• You live right across the street (hello...can we say convenient?)
• They seem to be in your yard an awful lot anyhow

Maybe it would help if we don't think of it as "babysitting" per se. I mean they're hardly babies, anymore. At ages 9 and 5, you'd really just have to feed and water them occasionally, make them brush their teeth once every other day, and keep them from playing in the street.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I did let them play in the street that one time, but the nice policeman did slow down and wait for me to hang up the phone before coming over to talk to me. I mean, it is a cul-de-sac, for goodness sake. What a great town.

So, assuming you have chicken nuggets in your freezer, juice boxes in your pantry, and something more up-to-date than a VCR in your living room, we're all good to go. Any chance you own a Wii? Oh, never mind...just give them a couple of empty cardboard boxes and a couple of pocket knives and they can basically carve themselves out a battleship or two. And, unless you suggest it, they probably won't even stab each other after they're done.

You won't even have to put them to bed because somehow I managed to have the kids that need very little sleep to function. They seem to have the uncanny ability to stay up into the wee hours of the night but still get up at 6:00 am the next morning. Unbelievable.

But you will have to actually speak to them in some fashion. You see, shyness isn't something these kids are accustomed to. They can spot it quite easily from approximately 200 yards away, and before you know it, they've already come up with more than a half-dozen ways to use it to their immediate advantage. Kids...you just can't teach 'em this stuff.

So, it's a plan. Are you free next Friday night?

Hugs and Kisses,

H