It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today I baby-sat for my cousin's nine-month-old daughter. I'm helping her and her husband out for the next couple of weeks since their usual nanny had to have surgery and needs to rest before she can go back to carrying a baby up and down stairs. Anyway, today I took care of the baby for ten hours, from early in the morning until the evening. It was a really easy day, actually. The baby still naps in the morning and the afternoon so she slept for half of the hours I was baby-sitting. Of the time she was awake, she spent half of that time eating pureed vegetables and/or drinking her bottles, so there was really a grand total of only 2-3 hours that I actually had to entertain the baby (or, more accurately, watch her and provide cheerful running commentary to build her vocabulary as she amused herself by doing fascinating things like, say, intently examining the stitching on my jeans).
Anyway, I decided that since it was sunny and 70 degrees outside we'd go for a walk, so I strapped the baby into the stroller and packed up the diaper bag and off we went to the park to see if I could convincingly blend in with all the other moms and dads and nannies (wait, "caregivers"). Turns out I do blend in just fine. There are a few more things I want to do first, but I'm more and more positive all the time that I'm about as ready as I can be to handle this mom role. The thing that really struck me on our park adventure, though, was how much my cousin's neighborhood is pretty much exactly like Sesame Street. There are rows of brownstone houses with porches, so the neighborhood sort of looks like the set, first of all. More importantly, the "characters" are all there: old couples sitting together on park benches; young couples jogging and throwing balls for their dogs; Asian kids and black kids and white kids all playing together on the swing set; guys that look like wannabe rappers walking across the crosswalk with moms with blonde ponytails and designer diaper bags to pick up their kids from the same school; conversations in Spanish and English and Korean all drifting across the park. Seriously, the only thing missing was a puppet in the trash can on the corner. The United States is supposed to be this fabulous, diverse place, but rarely do I see real diversity like I see in that neighborhood. I'm sure it's not always ideal, but today it was city living at its finest. And while I suppose eventually I wouldn't mind living in a smaller town or Stepford Wife suburb where I can actually afford a single-family home, I love that my little cousin is growing up in a place where you run into people of all shapes and sizes and colors and ages on a seven-walk block to the park, and it makes me excited that (hopefully) for at least their early years my kids will be city kids, too, and will have the same experience. When I think about the things that are important to me when it comes to trying to mold decent people (and wow, what a daunting task), I'd much rather my kids recognize and feel comfortable with all types of human beings than have a big backyard or their own bedrooms. And I'm not saying you can't raise open-minded, worldly kids in white suburbia or rural Nebraska, but it takes much more effort on your part than just opening the front door and saying hello to the neighbors.

In other news, I'm trying not to make this the all-wedding-all-the-time blog, but I just wanted to note that my sister and Penn's sister both came to visit earlier this week and we went bridesmaid dress shopping! (My sister and Penn's sister are my bridal party; since he and I each have one sister and one brother we figured we'd save ourselves the hassle of having to pick our "favorite" friends and possibly hurt people's feelings and just make our siblings the wedding party). I realize that since the wedding is still more than nine months away it's a bit early to be shopping for bridemaid dresses, but it was the only time my sister-in-law-t0-be is planning to visit between now and the wedding so we had to strike while the iron was hot. The whole process was actually really easy. They both decided they looked best in the second dress they tried on, so we tried on a few others just for fun, but really the whole thing took a grand total of twenty minutes. Now we just have to hope the dresses that we ordered now can be adjusted to fit whatever figures they'll have in January!

I'm going shopping for my wedding dress in three weeks when my mom comes to visit. I can hardly wait!