Today has not been as productive as I would have liked. This is entirely my own fault. I can�t seem to stick to one task and follow it through today. I�ve been flitting from one thing to the next without any particular plan, so while I�ve no doubt accomplished something, I have completed nothing.

I did manage to throw the bike in the car after lunch and head out to the Fox River Trail for a bike ride. The flooding is really impressive. My favorite bench for a scenic break was entirely underwater. It is usually at least 25 feet from the water�s edge. Fortunately it appears that few have been stupid enough to build in the flood plain, as in Des Plaines, and also that the Fox has somewhat steeper banks in many places, so the damage does not look as severe. Still, there were many, many trees down and the number and size of the mosquitoes was truly impressive. It ought to be a banner year for West Nile virus.

K. cornered me in the kitchen after we put AJ down for his nap. I was on the receiving end of a conversation for a good 15 minutes about her house and family and her sister, who graduates from middle school tonight. I now know that her basement is bigger than our house (the total house is 12,000 square feet), that her dad gets a weekly massage in his bedroom and that he�s been doing this for 11 years, that she has assigned different rings on her cell phone to different people and that her mom�s ring is the theme from �I Dream of Jeanie.� She and AJ have spent much of the day watching videos and playing computer games. I specifically said that we tried to keep his TV watching to an hour a day, but apparently I will need to be a little more straightforward. In fairness, it is difficult to entertain someone else�s kid for eight hours on a rainy day, but I think I�m going to need to do a little more event-planning to make this arrangement work. I don�t want to be hovering, but I do want AJ to be getting out and getting some exercise and engaging in a variety of activities. I don�t think K�s unwilling to do this, but it does seem like she needs a little direction. When I was babysitting in high school, which I did with great frequency, I tried to be creative about activities and I assumed that part of my job was coming up with things to do that would keep the kids happy. Now TV does, indeed, keep AJ happy for a certain amount of time, but ultimately it just breeds dissatisfaction. When he watches too much TV, as when both my husband and I were sick a couple of months back, he tends to just expect to be entertained all the time. He doesn�t take the initiative to come up with his own ideas about what to do. I suppose I�ll have to do some damage control tomorrow. I don�t want to be micromanaging K., and I realize it�s especially challenging to babysit when the parents are home, but I also don�t want this to happen every day.

I hope I�m not making this an impossible situation. While K.�s still trying to figure out how to do this job, I am still trying to figure out how not to do it. I�m having a little trouble figuring out when to step in and when to let things go. Hopefully all of these bumps will work themselves out as we all get more comfortable with the arrangement.

[2nd entry of nanny angst today. Click back for more]

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