Book and Nanny

I am looking for a babysitter for my non-existent baby. I don’t know whether I need childcare for a boy or a girl, or twins, and whether we’re talking a toddler or a newborn. I don’t know if he or she (or they) have special needs, or requires medication. But in order to complete my home study, I need to have one or two babysitters, who have had their criminal background checks certified by Live Scan and updated tuberculosis tests and are certified in CPR and First Aid, for my mythical child. The chicken or the egg question may be still up in the air, but I can tell you that the sitter comes first.

I haven’t started any interviews, but I’ve done plenty of other things for my theoretical baby. I’ve quit smoking, like I mentioned in the earlier entry (9 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours, and 48 minutes according to Quit-o-meter on Facebook, saving me $327.25), have started exercising more and eating better, since in addition to getting a babysitter for my non-baby, I’ve had to get a physical. On Saturday, we’re also getting our second estimate for a pool fence. Wouldn’t want our fictional baby to drown.

On the subject of my baby who is fiction rather than fictional, and may or may not be drowning, the second draft is going very well. Some chapters are better than I remembered them being, and some are a little … bloodless. What’s supposed to happen in them happens, but it just reads, in technical terms, kinda blah. My plan is that after I’m finished with the second draft, I’ll put the book aside for a couple weeks, and then attack it fresh. I have to finish the last chapter and completely rewrite Chapter 3 before I can take that kind of a break.

I had hoped to have it in good enough shape that my parents could read it at the end of August when they’re visiting L.A. Will this motivate me to bust my ass and get it done? … Hard to say. My motivations are a mystery to me as much as anyone.

That will be something I’ll have to say in my interview with my no doubt bewildered nanny-to-be.