Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Why 7 yr olds don't make good babysitters.

My little brother, Alex, is almost seven years younger than me, and, for better, or, most likely, worse, I was put in charge of him for many hours at a time starting right after my seventh birthday.


Aside from resenting Alex for having to hide in the house, pretending not to be home if anyone knocked at the door, and having to change his stupid diapers all the time, it wasn't so bad... except when I tried to eat his limbs.




Actually, I wanted to kill him, but thought that might make our mom a bit upset, so instead I would wrap my teeth around his foot/ankle or hand/wrist and bite just hard enough that I could feel his skin, then tense up my jaw so it shook, and imagine tearing his extremities off with my teeth, and the warm feeling of blood running down my teeth and out the corners of my mouth.




I had enough foresight/restraint to never actually leave teeth marks on him, but the thought was there.

Unfortunately, since it didn't hurt my brother, as he got a bit older, and mobile, he ended up thinking it was a comforting thing, and would run over to shove his fist into my mouth when he got upset with our mom.




This was probably karmic payback, because, like most toddlers, his hands weren't the cleanest things in existence.




Our mom was always confused by Alex's method of being calmed, but made me let him do it, since it was one of the quickest ways to quiet him.