I watch my friends around me with their families and friends living in the valley, and they have freedom to go out and about without their kids (don’t get me wrong, we love ‘em, but we need nights off!) and I’m jealous. Hey, we all need a night off. A beer out with the spouse or a party with ADULT friends where there are no crayons and Dora on the dvd player. A Real Party without playsets, without imagination, without snotty finger licking. I wish my inlaws would retire to Arizona (as I know my own father would NEVER ever move here to the heat of hell!), and I really could’ve used a babysitter when we were moving our rooms around last week.

Well, coincidentally my Skype rang in. It was my mother calling (and if you haven’t installed Skype yet, you’re missing out!), so we answered.  We were finishing breakfast and procrastinating on moving the huge furniture out of Claire’s room. (The armoire is 8X10X4 and heavy as hell.) So my mum was on Skype and started talking to Claire who was sitting at the dining room table totally engrossed at showing her whatever it was she was into at that exact minute. Well, we began moving that very large furniture, and my mum kept talking to Claire. When Claire began looking away, Mum called her back to the computer. She wasn’t corporeal but damn was she doing a good job babysitting?

Wouldn’t you know we got that whole room cleared out way before the carpet cleaners arrived, and Claire just sat there at the table with "Mimi on the ‘puter". So in this day and age, my 21st century tech-savvie beach babe was  babysat by her east coast mimi. How unlike when we grew up, huh? Now if we can just leave her  with Skype open so we can hit the town one night?