babysitting

It's always a pleasure to babysit when Mari's off on errands or doing something like her singing lessons. Ken and I have come a long way from the less than perfect first incident of his being under my sole care. Now we can play with toys together (he's learned to assemble a few pieces of Duplo, for instane) and generally pass the time in a constructive manner. Kenny can even play with toys on his own, which is great.

Speaking of babysitting, I was surprised to learn today what it costs to hire a babysitter in Tokyo. It's about ¥2500 and hour, which is more than $CA30! By comparison, in the late 80's I earned all of $2/hour babysitting.