Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Rambo - the Babysitter

Our babysitter is fantastic.  She's sweet, caring, incredibly flexible (in the availability sense, not the yoga sense), and very respectful to both my wife and me.  She walks 4 miles every day to our house to babysit because she says she enjoys walking.  She takes great care of Sammy, and he really seems to get along well with her.

But I'm afraid of her.

I'll hear her at the door on the weekends, and I'll scatter.  Almost to the point of hiding behind the couch.  I actually ran upstairs more than once.  I wish I had some of those ninja smoke bombs that make you disappear.

You see, she's Israeli.  Well, to be completely clear, she's Ukrainian, but she moved to Israel and has lived there for ten billion years (I was never clear on the time line).  In my mind, since she lived in Israel, she knows how to shoot an automatic weapon.  This is frightening to me.

Not only that, but she also is convinced that I speak fluent Russian.  Sigh...this is becoming a constant issue for me.  She'll walk in the house with her grenade launcher strapped around her back, holding a knife like Steven Seagal, and she'll carry on a full-on conversation with me.  Fast, uninterrupted, and extremely complicated.  Not only that, but she's got a Ukrainian/Israeli accent, which throws me completely off. 

When she does corner me for conversation, I just pretend like I'm a real Russian man, quiet and stoic.  I nod meaningfully.  I don't want to be impolite.  Especially to a 55 year old woman who can kill me in 17 different ways.  And that's only without touching me.

But the greatest thing about her is the things she'll say to Sammy.  My wife translated a few gems:

  • "Oh, no! YOU didn't pee in your diaper.  You would never do such a thing.  It was ME who peed in your diaper.  Shame on me!"
  • "You can't be cold, Sammy.  Let's cover you up.  If you're cold, how will you warm up all the ladies?"
  • "Oh, Sammy, you must be crying because you are tired from working so-so hard all day. When you grow up, you will certainly be president, then none of us will have to work"
It amazes me about her that she could probably diffuse a bomb in under 30 seconds, but she can be so good with my son.  Hopefully, some of that knowledge can rub off on him. 

5 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, she's awesome! I'd act the same way as you and I am (obviously, I would think) a woman. Smile and nod.

    Now is not the time to tell you that I know how to fire a gun as well, then, no? I come from a long line of career soldiers so why wouldn't I? As probably does she.

    Don't come near her if you see her holding a credit card, that would definitely be an armed weapon.

    So cute what she tells your son. I say the same sort of things to my children (in English) and people stare at me as if I'm crazy. I guess that's not typical American, then? That explains my husband's constant strange looks my way.

    Sammy is going to have a fun childhood with that woman.

    Na razie...

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  2. I totally need to tell my child that he must be crying because he worked hard....that's so awesome. Baby sitters are hard to find (good ones) so even though she's scary, i'm sure she's a keeper!

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  3. I am already terrified of her.

    On another note, when Mr. B and I were learning to shoot Uzis in the West Bank in a facility established by ex-IDF special mission guys (I am not making any of this sentence up), we saw the scariest woman ever. She had like 8 guns and Mr. B cried a little.

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  4. Presidents need bomb diffusing skills. It's on the test.

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  5. My grandpa was captured in the sixties (when he was serving as part of UN forces in Sinai) by a patrol troop of Israeli women. He said it seemed great, they were stunning and it was boring in the desert.
    After a week at their camp he said he was scared of beautiful women for the rest of his life.
    Good job Sammy is in training early on. You two are such loving parents, preparing him for life!

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