I don't feel especially joyful around little kids...

[zanne]

Yeah, yeah; I know...I'm a monster. So sue me. I've never had that urge to have children, so I didn't. I never meant to be a babysitter either, but I am now presented with a dilemna. My sister-in-law and I decided early on this spring to have a huge garden in my yard. (I have the space, but not the energy to do it all myself). All the seeds have been ordered and I've started alot of them indoors with special lights, heating elements, etc. We have a truckload of manure sitting outside and we've ordered several truckloads of loam.

Here comes the hairy part. Yesterday, my sister-in-law mentioned, in casual conversation, that "Chance will love gardening with us all summer". Chance is her grandson. As you may have guessed this is brand-spanking news to me. It seems that she volunteered to babysit him for the SUMMER!. She knows that I'm childless by choice, but I guess it just never entered her mind that I wouldn't want to babysit a hyperactive three year-old child while I'm trying to grow vegetables and pull weeds in a zen-like manner.

So, the question is, what the hell do I do now? I can't very well call off the garden because I've already sunk several hundred dollars into it. I can't tell my sister-ion-law that I don't love her grandson as much as she does and that I don't want him around for the summer and I can't run away to join the circus. I mean, what if, in a particularly bad perimenopausal mood, I happen to snap at him?

Any suggestions?