Rent-a-Baby

Yesterday, I finally used my YMCA membership to actually swim. And not that recreational splash around type of swimming. No I did the laps type of swimming. Doing this made me realize how out of shape I am. I did 50 meters (two laps of the pool) and I stopped to catch my breath. Dang. While on my high school swim team I would do 60 laps (1500 meters) for a warm-up.

Anyway. I was swimming in the same lane as CM and JR. While we were taking our extended breaks at the end of the pools we were watching the swim lessons going down in the lane next to us. The kids were around 2-3 years old and so adorable. It was funny to see the range of fearlessness the kids had. Some kids were charging right into the pool. Other kids were grasping for their lives onto the swim instructor (even though they had a floaty-thing strapped on their backs and a noodle to hang onto).

Watching these kids made me want a kid of my own to teach how to swim. In fact, I want to have a kid that I can play with and have an excuse to go to places like Chuckee Cheeses or children's Museums. Those places are awesome. Why can't adults go? I'm just a kid at heart. My mom tells me that I am really good with my little cousins (who range from the ages of 2-8 years old) because instead of interacting with the other adults I will play games with the little kids at family functions. What she doesn't know is that I really like to play those games and I am just happy to have someone I can be goofy with.

Just because I like children does not mean that I want to birth or raise a child. I just want one for a few hours so I can play with it. CM and I have talked about starting a Rent a Baby business before. It would almost be like day care. Parents who work would bring in their kids. Then people that would want to rent them would come in. It would work like foster care (or how foster care should work) in that we would do extensive background checks to make sure we don't have any meany mcmean people coming in to rent babies.

I would probably be one of those people that would not be allowed to rent a baby because, for example, if I were to rent a baby/child to teach how to swim I would probably end up tossing the kid into the pool saying, "This is how you learn how to swim kid!" Don't worry, I would make sure that they had on some kind of flotation device. Another example, with my sister's friend's 5 year old daughter: During the 4th of July parade I got her to start chanting (to the Republican State Senator as he passed by with re-election campaign literature), "We say no. No to Joe." I also like to tell kids things I know that are not true, just to see if they believe me. Yeah, kids don't fully grasp sarcasm and it is not good to use it with them.

JR, CM and I need to find a way to combine Captain Oily's and this Rent-a-Baby business.