This week I’m babysitting my niece. While I love spending time with her and her sisters, it’s also a challenge. I don’t have kids. I’m not used to changing diapers. I am not mentally ready to be responsible for a little life for hours at a time. I have no idea what will keep her interest from moment to moment. But here I am…wiping a poopy butt and trying to teach counting from 1-10 while climbing up stairs at the playground. 

Monday was pretty easy (my sister, thankfully, got poop duty). Today, however, she tested my patience. She wanted something I couldn’t provide: Mommy. I decided to let her get her frustration out and after an hour of faux weeping, teeth gnashing and hair tearing, she accepted my peace offering: a bowl of Goldfish crackers. Afterward, there was a little more bemoaning the trials and tribulations of life as a 3-year old, but I’d like to think that she accepted me as her caregiver and this won’t happen again. Tomorrow is another day.

Taking care of a toddler also means I can’t take a nap during the day. I have to be on high alert at all times. It also means at the end of the day I’m exhausted. Too exhausted to stress about anything in my personal life. The plus side is that I’m getting 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night…which usually doesn’t happen because I’m stressing out about my personal life. 

So here it is…10:30 and I’m ready for bed. I feel like an 80 year old. But I’m going to drag myself to bed so I can be ready to deal with whatever she decides to throw at me. 

First, I watched the Lars von Trier movie, ‘Melancholia‘. A movie about the end of the world? I’m in! For me, the story took center stage while the acting was…just okay. Speaking of acting, I found out Kirsten Dunst was a replacement for Penelope Cruz…who I think would have been able to bring a little more depth the part, but we’ll never know since she was busy playing pirates with Johnny Depp. Regardless, I really liked the movie and now I’m calm and ready to accept our fate in December when the world ends. There’s nothing to do about it, why stress?

With world destruction on my mind, I thought I should use my yoga studio Groupon before I lose out on it completely. Pretty impressive reasoning, I know. So I signed up for a class called Flow and Renew, which is described as a dynamic flow combined with relaxing poses. It beaconed: come sweat and restore. “Ok,” I thought, “I’m up for the challenge followed by some serious relaxing. The class was awesome. During my practice, I rocked both my chaturanga and Supta Baddha Konasanaa. Well the second one wasn’t as difficult and while doing it I was fantasizing about visiting India and becoming a yogi. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I was wondering if I could sell my belongings, run away to a foreign land and just yoga and meditate the day away. It worked for the lady in Eat, Pray, Love. Although I would trade Italy for France for the eating and learning a new language part.

Of course now I realize that I need to move quickly if I’m going to put this plan into action before December. Hmmm…now I’m stressed.

I’ve never made guacamole before. Seems easy enough, I thought. So I went to the store, grabbed some ingredients and mixed it up. It was pretty thrown together, but tasted pretty decent. I have two small avocados left over so I may try again tomorrow.

Afterward, my friend, Holly, her boyfriend, and I wanted to get a drink and can you believe we went to two bars and both were closed?! It was 6pm, prime happy hour time! What’s up North Hollywood?!

Happy Passover French Macarons!

Too happy to be hipster.