Tuesday, 03 July 2007

• Just Call Me 'Shooby'

  Saturday my aunt, uncle, and three cousins arrived at my parents’ house to stay for a few days. Sydney just turned 6, Alayna is about to turn 3, and Abby was born in December. Needless to say, it has not been a quiet twenty-four hours (though after a couple months of babysitting four little girls under five, it’s pretty typical for me).

  We decided that it would be fun to take them to the pool, so me, my mom, my aunt, and the two older girls piled into the car (I make it sound like it was fast - it took probably an hour to get everything ready) and headed to the country club where my family has a summer pool membership. I had a bag full of books, music and sunglasses, ready to lay out on a chair and work on my tan. However, within a few moments of arriving, it soon became clear that I was going to have to be in the pool with my cousins the entire time.

  There must be a span of years, somewhere towards the end of high school and the beginning of college, where you feel kind of awkward in your own skin. You’re not really a little kid anymore, but you’re not really an adult. I think that a couple of years ago I would have just told Sydney that I didn’t want to swim. But maybe now I’ve realized that’s actually pretty jerk-ish of me, and now I really enjoy spending time with little kids. Does that mean I’m ready to have my own kids? I don’t know. If it does, I think I’ll still wait a while. A long while.

  Anyway, my aunt had Alayna in her arms and was bouncing her around. Alayna wanted everyone to share in the fun, so she called out to her sister: “Sydney, I’m bouncing!” Then she looked at me.

  “Shooby, I’m bouncing!”

  None of us were really sure what she had just said. Shooby? She looked at me again.

  “Shooby, I’m bouncing!”

  Clearly she was talking to me. “Good job, Alayna!” I exclaimed.

  And if there was any doubt that she was calling me ‘Shooby,’ it was confirmed again Sunday. We headed back to the pool, and after pushing Alayna on the swing for a while, she got off and ran to the baby pool. “Shooby, come on!” she yelled at me.

  I’ve been called a lot of things. When my youngest sister was little, she couldn’t say ‘Chelsey,’ so she called me “Shashy” or “Shaf.” In the past couple of years, various foreigners and young children have called me everything from “Chesley” to “Charsy” and “Cholsey.” I guess you get used to it after a while.

  Probably the cutest instance of it, though, was last night when we went out to eat at Moe’s. She looked over at me while eating her cheese quesadilla and exclaimed, “Shooby, I’m a’ eatin’ at Moo’s!”

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