‘Uze’
With Jenny away I was given a chance to look after my grandson for the day
Finally, someone the kid looks up to gets his chance to show his love and patience.
Okay, good. Jenny’s not here and my daughter-in-law is asking for me to look after Camden. Yea! I thought. That was followed by, are you kidding me?
Jesus Christ, how many times must I be told? It’s not like I’m a dimwit! It’s just for the day, not a month.
Okay, I’m leaving now. I put a couple of sippy cups in the fridge, they’ve got juice in. Oh, and I put some hot dogs in there too. Or he might want a peanut butter and jelly. You won’t forget to give him some fruit. He loves fruit. Cookies are in the cupboard over the microwave, but don’t let him have too many, and not too close to lunchtime. If you let him fill up on junk food, he won’t eat his lunch. Diapers are in the powder room. Don’t forget to check to see if he needs changing once in a while, all right?
Please just go, my head is spinning off…
If you take him outside, make sure you put his hat on him. It’s windy out and I don’t want him getting an ear infection. The Construction Show comes on at 8:30, StoryBots is on at 11:00. I hate that he’s starting to like television so much. Don’t want him getting addicted to that stuff. Don’t let him watch anything other than those two shows. If you let him, he’ll sit in front of that thing all day. Put him down for his nap around 2:00. If you let him go to sleep earlier, he’ll sleep for 20 minutes and then he’ll be up and won’t go back to sleep.
My head is on the ground looking up at me.
Now, what am I forgetting? Oh, yeah…remember to take the dogs out sometime. Let me see…anything else? Oh, God…I’m so late. I have to go. Have a good time you two. Give mommy a kiss, Camden. I should be back by 3:30. Mommy loves you sweetie. Be a good boy for Granddad. I am really late…I’m leaving now. Bye, have a good time.
The head on the floor is asking for the all-clear. It gets back on my shoulders.
My daughter-in-law is going shopping for the day, while my son is covering at work for someone who is on sick leave. Jenny is in Chicago, I think. Or Denver, maybe. Not sure.
This is cool, the first time that I have been entrusted with the care of our two-year old grandchild, Camden.
“Well, buddy, Mommy’s gone. It’s just us men. What do you think we should do?”
“Uze.”
See, we understand each other. I took his hand, and he led me to the kitchen.
“Uze,” he said again, pointing to the cupboard over the microwave.
“I know, pal, you want a cookie.”.
Well, it was almost 8:30 and the Construction show would be on in a few minutes. Couldn’t expect a guy to watch television without a little snack.
“What do you say? Can you say, thank you?”
“Uze,” he says.
“Right, then, let’s do this, okay?”
Camden ran from the kitchen, something he’s just learned to do and has taken a couple of spills, and crawled up on the sofa, took the remote from between the cushions where he hides it, so his mother doesn’t see it and put it up high somewhere. The kid is a bloody genius.
Camden sat back on the sofa and took a bite of his cookie and with his eyes glued to the television screen, he chewed steadily on his cookie. As I settled onto the sofa beside him, he momentarily took his eyes from the TV, looking at me.
“Uze.” His arm came up, one finger pointing at the kitchen. There were two cookies left in the jar.
“You want another?” I asked.
The next Uze sounded different.
“Okay, you want some milk”? I asked.
“Uze.” This time the word was accompanied by a little smile.
I went into the kitchen and poured some milk into a spill proof cup, came back and handed it to him.
“Here you go. What do you say?”
“Uze.” Perfect. I’ve got him saying please and thank you already.
I was really getting the hang of things. This babysitting stuff isn’t going to be a problem, I thought, as I settled back down with him just as the bloody dog starts barking.
I got up again and went to the back door. Take your time, I muttered, and I went back to the sofa.
“Uze.” Two small, empty hands were being held out to me.
“No more cookies, Buddy. You’ve had enough.”
“Uze, uze.” The small hands waved insistently. Well, honestly, what harm can a couple more cookies do? It’s still early. They won’t spoil his lunch. Another trip to the kitchen and I deposited two more Wafers into the little guy's hands.
“What do you say?”
“Uze.” His mother is going to think me a star with him learning these new words.
My concentration on the TV was broken by furious barking and growling coming from the yard. Bolting off the sofa, I ran out the back door. There was a strange car parked in the neighbor’s driveway. The people in the car were trying to get out, but Jordy seemed to have other ideas. He was racing around the car, barking his fool head off.
Jordy is harmless, but the people in that car don’t know that.
I walked across the yard to get him.
“Get in the house, you bloody excuse for a big dog,” I said. Jordy ran inside holding his tail between his hind legs.
Back in the lounge, wait, something is missing, not something, someone…!”
“Camden… Camden…where are you?”
Oh crap, did I leave the door open? Has he wandered outside. Jordy is at the window, barking like a mad dog. Oh geez, Camden is walking down the path toward the road.
I race to the door, fall over the trike, hit my head on a car door mirror, and call his name.
“Uze, uze, uze,” he said.
“Now let’s go back inside, Camden. Mommy wouldn’t like you wandering off now, would she?”
Oh no, crap! They’ve got a ring doorbell.
What time was it? God, only 9:00? My watch must have stopped.
Back in the lounge, I turned off the TV and stuck the remote in my back pocket. I checked my watch again. 9:01.
There was a pile of crumbs on the sofa, and the bloody dog is on there, licking them up, hair and muddy paw prints on the light tan fabric. Fuck my life!
I went into the kitchen to get a damp cloth and was running the water when I heard a scream. Camden had run into the standing light in the corner of the room in his walk along car, bringing the lamp down on him.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry lad. It’s just a lampstand, look, it doesn’t weigh more than ten pounds, see. He didn’t see, he was holding his head, lying face down on the floor kicking his lags.
“For fuck’s sake, Jordy, get off the sofa, you piece of shit!”
I look back at Camden, now sitting up and laughing at me. Oh hell, I hope he didn’t learn any of that.
Quickly, my mind ran through the few options that I could think of to keep him happy. We could go outside and play, but it’s pretty cold out. We could get the crayons out and color. We could play with the zillion or so toys piled in every corner of the house. We could read stories. Or…we could watch cartoons. But my daughter-in-law had been frank about Camden watching too much television.
It was time for an executive decision.
Pulling the remote from my back pocket I switched on the television, then held my finger on the channel button until a cartoon appeared on the screen. I picked up Camden and sat him on the side of the sofa that wasn’t wet where I had tried to clean the fabric. I’ll kill that fucking dog before the day’s over.
In the kitchen I got one of the cups of juice and a Pepsi for myself from the fridge. I handed Camden the juice, popped the top on the Pepsi and settled into the sofa beside my grandson. A quick look from the corner of my eye assured me that everything was fine. Jordy was asleep on his bed.
Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes for a moment. I wouldn’t fall asleep. Just needed to relax for a minute. Wait, what in God’s name is that stink? Like an ammonia capsule, the smell shook the stupor from my brain. I looked at my watch. It said 9:15, but it couldn’t be.
The stink, and I mean stink, is coming from Camden’s ass. Oh My God, that is bad. Very, very, bad.
“Camden, do you have a dirty diaper?”
“Uze.”
After grabbing a fresh diaper, I laid Camden on the floor, where he immediately begins to squirm, roll over, and in general do everything possible to make things difficult for me. Finally, I got his jeans off, pulled the tapes and pulled the diaper down. Oh my God! How could one little boy make such one huge area of shit? Where the hell are the wipes?
I close him back up for a moment to retrieve the wipes, turning back for ten seconds, no, couldn’t have been more than eight actually.
“No! No, Camden. Aw, jeez! Put that diaper down! Stop! Oh, no, don’t give it to Jor…”
Picking up Camden, holding him well away from me, I chased down the dog, feinted left, then right, and snatched the diaper from the dog’s mouth.
I stand there, out of breath, holding Camden ass as far off my side as possible, and holding a torn and dripping diaper between my thumb and finger.
About twenty-five wipes later, the messy little bugger is clean. It’s 9:25. I cannot believe how much I paid for this watch.
My iPhone rings.
“Hi, I’m having to come home, the car is playing up.”
Let me tell you how much those words soothed my soul.
“Oh no, and we’re having so much fun, honey.”
I had to make haste and run my cleaning stuff back to the closet.
I checked the sofa, moved a couple of pillows, and sat with Camden reading a story.
“Hey guys, how’d it go?”
“Piece of cake honey, time was flitting by. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
“Aw, that’s great. I’m so proud of you both. The good news is Brenda called to say she was going tomorrow, and I could go with her. I wasn’t going to go, but since things went so well for you today, I think maybe I could. If you don’t mind?”
“Uze!”
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