Mary Anne's on her own. Can she take charge?

The Baby-sitters Club #4: Mary Anne Saves the Day

And we're back! New year, same old Stoneybrook. Thank God we have Mary Anne to save the freakin' day.

The BSC is inordinately attached to the Newton family. Now I like the Newtons. I've said before that I like to think Mrs. Newton was probably a pretty hip, cool mom, and all the girls seem really comfortable with her (unfortunately, as we'll see later on, that means they feel really comfortable acting like jerks in front of her), but their obsession with the Newton family, and especially baby Lucy, is getting kind of creepy at the point. Of course, that said, my co-worker brought her 6-month-old into the office today, and I got super-excited and probably spent half an hour making funny faces at her and could have gone on much longer except the baby had to go home. On the other hand, you have to factor in my absolute lack of desire to do anything resembling my actual job, so... where was I?

Oh yes, the BSC is creepily fixated on Lucy Newton and really, that is the crux of this whole shitshow of a book. Mrs. Newton calls the club and wants a baby-sitter for both Jamie and Lucy (remember that Mrs. Newton really doesn't trust these 12 year-olds with her infant. And with good reason-- they lose kids.) Kristy takes the job without offering it to any of the others (and FYI, in case anyone doesn't buy my "Mrs. Newton is awesome" theory, please note that the Newton's need a sitter because they are throwing a classic cocktail party from 6-8 pm on a Friday night. This is one of those awesome things that I fully intend to do once I a) have an apartment that is not someone's 300 square foot basement, and b) can afford to fully stock a bar. I will probably need to get married to achieve either of these goals. That's what Mrs. Newton did.) ANYWAY, Kristy taking this job without offering it around (club rule!) sparks this WAY out of proportion fight that sounds remarkably like all their other fights. Kristy is job-hog, MA is a baby, Stacey is a snob, Claudia is stuck up (I don't really see this one, but oh well. When you're 12 and yelling insults at each other, they don't always have to make sense. That is one thing I very vividly recall about 7th grade.) So suddenly, the very fabric of the BSC is threatened.

Stacey has never been so wrong in her life!

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The Baby-sitters Club #18: Stacey’s Mistake


Really, Stace? You’ve never been so wrong? Really? What about the time you thought you were going to run off to la-la-land with Scott Foley? What about the time you tried to set your mother up with appalling drama queen John Brooke? Let’s try to keep a bit of perspective here, ok?

I’m not going to lie, I LOVED re-reading this book. I believe that I have made clear in the past that Stacey’s life in NYC is pretty much the entire reason I chose to move from the Midwest to NYC when I was 23. And seriously, even though I am on the far side of my 20s these days, and Stace is 13, I totally identified with her SO MUCH in this book. Those parts will be made clear in the coming paragraphs through my squealing and digression into meaningless anecdotes from my own life. That is why you read, right?

So a bunch of the adults in Stacey’s (AWESOME, UPPER WEST SIDE, WHITE-GLOVE DOORMAN) building (seriously, what does Ed do for a living? I’ll marry him!) are planning to attend this big neighborhood meeting about homelessness (this is possibly the most bizarre premise ever, but I’m just going to run with it) and 5 different families ask Stacey to babysit. Rather than turn down 4 of them, Stace has the brilliant idea to invite the BSC (minus Jessi and Mallory, which right away shoots this book to the top of my LOVE list) to visit NYC and babysit all the kids.

Claudia might give up the BSC- and it's all the new girls fault!

The Baby-sitters Club #12: Claudia and the New Girl

See, I bet you all thought that I met some sort of new girl (or even better, new BOY) and was dragged away from my BSC recapping duties in order to become new best friends with this person and follow my other muse... but I didn't. And I don't really have another muse. What I do have, as I've complained about before, is a freaking job. And sometimes it really interferes with my life (oh, and grad school doesn't help much either.)

Claudia, on the other hand, does not have a job. She has her art. You know who else has art? Ashley Wyeth, the titular "New Girl." Ashley is one of those pretentious arty types that no one wants to talk to at cocktail parties, the kind who prattles on about her muse and who can't possibly see the humor in a story about someone else's annoying boss (I myself have myriad "annoying boss" cocktail party stories, and they are all hilarious. Maybe someday you all will be lucky enough to attend a cocktail party with me!) However, in this case, it sort of works, because Ashley doesn't want to talk to anyone else anyway. Except Claud.

This was one sitting job Jessi couldn't resist!

The Baby-sitters Club #22: Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter

Okay, dear readers, fear not. I've not forgotten you. Much as I would love to read and recap the BSC full-time, the world does not see the value in this (YET) and therefore, even BSC recappers must have day jobs. And sometimes, those day jobs go haywire and take over your life.

Speaking of jobs going haywire, Jessi Ramsey has decided, against Kristy's better judgment, to take a pet-sitting job. Oh Jessi, when will you ever learn that going against Kristy's better judgment is never, ever a good idea? See, the Braddocks are out of town and Jessi's dance school is "taking a break" (um, okay? Never heard of any fancy pants dance school deciding they should just shut down for a week, but let's just roll with it, all right?) so Jessi has free afternoons for once. And it just so happens that the BSC gets a frantic call from Mr. and Mrs. Mancusi, whose pet-sitter backed out on them right before the trip of a lifetime. Kristy, remembering her experience with Buffy and Pinky, is all offended, but Jessi thinks it sounds fun and talks her into letting her take the job.

Mary Anne has a crush-- on a boy baby-sitter!

The Baby-sitters Club #10: Logan Likes Mary Anne!

Eh, Logan. You could do better.

Well, it's the first day of the BSC's interminable 8th grade year and guess who Mary Anne spies across the crowded cafeteria? None other than her new celebrity crush, Cam Geary. Except, wait!, Stacey tells her, that's not Cam Geary. That's Logan Bruno, recnet transplant from Louisville, Kentucky (that would be Loovull, as we are treated to some delightful stereotyping of Logan's accent.) MA's heart is all aflutter.

The BSC has a huge influx of business thanks to some recent adertising, and it's getting to be too much for them to handle. Logan eavesdrops on their convo at lunch one day, and announces that he used to do a lot of baby-sitting. Mostly, this seems like a ploy to be able to oome sit by the tongue-tied Mary Anne. The BSC invites him to come to one of their meetings.

Babies on board!

The Baby-sitters Club #45: Kristy and the Baby Parade

Oh, I totally remembered this book as soon as I started reading it. Why, you ask? Because when I was eleven, I too took one of those Red Cross-sponsored baby-sitting courses like the "infant care course" the girls took. It was a one-day course in the summer at the local community center. And I too thought that it made me the shiz-nit. I liked to tell people that I was a Red Cross-certified baby-sitter, and I carried the little card with the Red Cross lady's signature on it everywhere I went, in case anyone wanted me to prove it. However, pretty much all I remember from the actual class is the pizza we ordered for lunch.

So the Baby-sitters are baby-crazy these days. Mrs. Prezzioso wants a sitter to watch Jenny and four-month-old Andrea on a regular basis, but she wants that person to take an infant care course first. I have to say, if I were really uncertain about whether or not someone were capable of caring for my baby, her attendance at one of those Red Cross seminars would not particularly sway me. But apparently, Mrs. P does not share my concerns, and so Kristy takes the job and signs up for the course. Then, the rest of the BSC decides that they want to attend, too. After all, according to Claudia, then maybe they can advertise themselves as "infant care specialists." Um, after a few hours in the basement of the community center? In that case, my baby-sitting class plus my day camp counselor training ought to make me Exalted High Queen Baby-sitter over All the Universe. I wonder how that would look on my resume.

Everybody in Stoneybrook has gone beauty-pageant crazy!

The Baby-sitters Club #15: Little Miss Stoneybrook... and Dawn

Aaah, pageantry. I lived for the Miss America pageant when I was little... and by little, I mean pretty much up until I was in high school and got a car. And a life. When I was five, I met Miss Michigan at the opening of a new McDonalds in my hometown. I was beyond thrilled. She signed a picture for me and everything. I probably still have it. I'm glad as a kid I didn't realize how lame this was. I mean, think about it. I thought being a Miss Something was like the epitome of a glamorous life, but really? She was cutting the ribbon outside a new fast-food restaurant in a town no one's ever heard of. The coolness factor of getting to use the enormous scissors notwithstanding, this is not exactly Grace Kelly's lifestyle.

Okay, then. Stoneybrook pageant time! Dawn is feeling jealous because Kristy created some weird cultlike induction ceremony to welcome Jessi and Mal to the club (as replacements for Stacey. Ha! As if anyone could ever replace Stacey. Especially them.) So when Mrs. Pike calls to offer Dawn a job helping Claire and Margo prepare for the Little Miss Stoneybrook pageant, she jumps on it as a chance to show everyone that she is a special baby-sitter too.

Can Mary Anne fix a feud between friends?

The Baby-sitters Club #125: Mary Anne in the Middle

Now here I am approaching uncharted waters. I never read much BSC above probably the 70s as a kid. If I recall correctly, by the time Dawn moved back to California, I was pretty much over it. The last book I vaguely remember reading as a kid was the one where the annoying new girl, Abby, was introduced (so just taking a wild stab in the dark here, but I think it was #90, Welcome to the BSC, Abby!) and even at that point, I remember feeling way too old for it and telling everyone I was reading it in an ironic fashion, because my friend Emily had read it and lent it to me because even though we were far too old for these books (we were like, 12 or something, but we had high opinions of ourselves), but Emily's Aunt Barbara kept sending them to her as gifts, and well, it would be rude of us not to at least read them, right?

So apparently, life at Stoneybrook Middle School has just become unbearable for Mallory Pike. People call her Spaz Girl (boy, SMS students are pretty hard-hitting with the insults, huh?) and write mean things on her locker and purposely bump into her in the hall. So Mal decides that perhaps she needs to go off to boarding school to "find herself" at the age of 11. The BSC is not so keen on that idea, but no one says anything. I think we're supposed to believe that they don't say anything because they don't want to influence her decision and want her to do what's right for her (a party line towed by her tutti-frutti parents as part of their "WOO! NO RULES!" child-raising philosophy) but I think secretly the BSC is just excited that if she goes, they won't have to listen to her whine anymore... Or am I projecting my own feelings on them? Oh well.