Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Weekdays With Wyatt


Having been a nanny now for slightly more than half a decade, I can honestly say, I've never met a baby I didn't like. In fact, most people who say they don't like babies I would presume have never spent a great deal of time with any. Babies are lovely honest creatures, who if you meet one during your day, will most likely be the most straightforward person you will encounter that week. If they happen to be crying in a restaurant, it's only because they are as miserable to be there as you are to have them around. Taking babies to nice places is no fun, because babies, for the most part, don't understand 'nice' yet. They just are. They eat mashed bananas from a spoon shaped like a racecar. They care not for mood lighting, ambiance or having to 'keep it down.' In any event, I would rather spend my days earning a living taking care of wee babies than clocking in at a corporate job I don't really care for, in an an industry i don't have any interest in working in. I am blessed and cursed in knowing exactly what I want: the o'l attractive writer/professor combo, and until I get that old mighty book published or that PHD in English, and Dog willing that will be soon, I'm content to do this.
Babies though, are of course people, and we get along with some better than others, and well, Wyatt and I get along swimmingly. Wyatt and I share two of my greatest passions, long walks looking at architecture and amusing ourselves quietly. He is not intense and all of that, but very laid back and he loves to look and point. To smile at the scent of fresh lavender when I run a snapped sprig under his nose, or to make little 'oo'ing noises when we see an impressive building- in this case the Villa San Pasqual in Pasadena. We film ourselves dancing to Dynamite, Single Ladies, and California Girls, and lay on our stomachs and pull grass while listening to David Gilmour spill out from the insides of the house. We like chocolate and rice crackers, avocados and salt. Being with Wyatt is like being with Ollie, who is 7 now and I watched for three years. Ollie was my best friend in many ways, we saw each other at times more than I saw my roommates and friends, and him his mom and dad. Wyatt aside from sharing a similar resemblance, has a light and easy spirit in the same way. Where Ollie was an athlete, I believe that Wyatt, already is an artist.
He is lucky enough to live in one of the most walkable, beautiful parts of Pasadena, and we spend our mornings admiring the structures erected around us, Spanish Villa, English Tudor, turn of the century Bungalow, pre fab nineteen 50's modern, Grecian inspired 1920's romance. They are lovely mornings, awake before the sleepy, quiet world and we walk under oak trees, the sun warming us and call out to each other when we see something we like.



The Villa San Pasqual designed by Lionel Mayell, 'godfather of the condo.' these condos have been declared a historical monument and to buy one could easily set you back close to a mill.




beautiful caltech