I received what may or may not have been a compliment a couple days ago. I was babysitting a four-year-old demon and his non-demonic little sister. we walked/rode our respective tricycles to the park, where we met another non-demonic baby girl and her father. as the demon hurtled himself at top speed down the side of the hill and his sister attempted unsuccessfully to follow suit, the father asked me my how old my kids were. my kids. I gave the question a moment of thought before answering, and he looked modestly horrified until I explained that I was only the babysitter.


my first thought was "wow! I look old enough to be the mother of two children!" surprising, since a lot people seem to think I look about sixteen. my second thought was "wow! I look like the kind of person who is somewhere between sixteen and twenty-two and has two children!"


however, I didn't have much time to ponder the ramifications, as the demon was holding onto my hair as though for dear life while simultaneously trying to roll backwards down the hill and the two-year-old was hightailing it across the field with the other baby's ball. then we went home and I spent the rest of the morning catching the shoes he was hurling across the room before they hit little hannah in the head, deflecting his punches, prying his fingers off the sticks he was cracking across my back, and attempting to convince him that kraft dinner really does taste better than human flesh, especially if the human flesh is mine.


when he got up the next morning and I was giving him breakfast, he said "listen, (he starts every sentence with 'listen') I had such a lovely dream last night." what kind of four-year-old has lovely dreams? even though I haven't had bruises this colour since the last broomball tournament, I guess he's moderately forgiven for being demonic.