This is a tribute to how even though Annie is the youngest of the group, she actually has more mommy/parental qualities than almost anyone else – yet Jeff and Britta are the self-proclaimed Greendale parents and Shirley is the designated mommy figure. Or this could just be an excuse to use a disgustingly adorable title/nickname [IMO]
Annie often hated being the only responsible one in the group, especially when she did 90 percent of their project work. Actually, she would have done 90 percent even if the others were capable, so maybe that was a bad example. But there was no way she was letting their irresponsibility off the hook on this one.
It was a process of elimination that made Annie the Bennett's designated babysitter on this mid-summer night. Pierce was still two months away from wanting anything to do with the group, Troy and Abed would be more like babies than sitters, Britta was not a baby person despite having brought little Ben into the world, and Jeff was….Jeff. So Shirley and Andre had no choice but to select Annie to watch over their new baby, while they went out and their more grown children were sleeping over with friends.
Since Annie was the first non-Bennett to watch over Ben in his brief life, she took that responsibility as seriously as expected. After getting her 24-hour notice, she spent about 18 of those hours looking up every babysitting tip she could, buying every bottle, diaper and rattle she could afford, and setting up the perfect schedule for feeding and sleeping. Abed would probably have told Annie that doing it like this was setting up a John Hughes-Esq. comedy of babysitting errors – which were more fun to watch than to be a part of. Well, at least the ones from the 80s were.
It only took about seven minutes for Annie to wish she'd listened to the imaginary Abed in her brain.
By the time the next 33 minutes were over, Annie had already rocked back and forth in the nearest corner at least twice. It did little to drown out the crying or get the stains out of her hair and blouse, but nothing else on the regimen was close to working. Annie was the only responsible person Shirley had to call on – yet she was badly wishing she could get rid of her pride and call those other irresponsible people to bail her out. So that spoke to how responsible she really was at the moment.
Somehow, Annie had enough strength in her body to stand up and go back into the eye of the storm. That eye was still sitting in his high chair – after screaming in Annie's ear during the entire walk to that high chair, he at least owed her that much. But Ben was still crying and hadn't eaten anything, so Annie walked an inch at a time towards the chair.
If she was going to try feeding Ben again, she probably should have gotten a poncho or one of Shirley's coats to cover herself. However, if she gave herself a second of free time to do that, she probably would have run away and not looked back, so that was out.
Annie just took the first little can of baby food she could find that wasn't knocked over. She had labeled specific foods and bottles to give to Ben at specific times, but at this point she didn't care if this one was an hour early or late. She just needed something to go into Ben instead of coming out or being flung at her. Yet she was barely surprised when Ben once again turned his head and closed his mouth instead of taking his unscheduled spoonful of food. She was just exhausted; and since she was almost cried out by now, all she could do was start pleading.
"Please….just pretend this is an airplane or train or bus. If there's some other car you want to eat, go on and chow down! Please.…just eat some kind of car for your Auntie Annie…."
Maybe that last part stuck because Annie needed anything else to focus on at the moment. Maybe she was all prepped up for one of her typical nervous breakdowns; as if the ones from earlier didn't cover it. The simpler explanation was that the way Annie pronounced "Auntie" made it sound like she had just said her own name twice, by pronouncing aunt "ant" instead of "ahnt."
But for whatever reason, the new nickname she gave herself made her crack her first smile since the other Bennetts left. It might not have been the sanest smile, yet it was one nonetheless. And that smile soon gave way to the beginning of a laughing fit.
"Auntie Annie," Annie repeated in the same tone as before, again making it sound like she said Annie twice. She then said it three times fast and soon wound up saying Annie twice in a row, which got her to laugh even louder and longer. At first, it did sound like a demented crazy Annie laugh, but it soon began to change forms. The sheer relief of having anything to laugh at, and the actual humor in her name being used like that, soon let her have an actual genuine, sane fit of laughter.
It helped make her sane enough to realize that by the time she was almost finished, Ben wasn't crying anymore. In fact, by the very end it almost sounded like he was adding to the laugh track. Indeed, after Annie caught her breath and actually looked at Ben again, she saw that he was letting out a little laugh and looking at her, instead of crying or spitting at her.
The mere sight of a quiet Ben actually made Annie turn her brain off in shock. So of course when she could think again, her thoughts were in overdrive. After all that madness, all the now obviously overrated books she read and all the failed tactics she used to get Ben settled, how did it work now when she was too nuts to try? All she did was crack up at a pun-riddled nickname and laugh and not freak out for the first time since she got here….
Although it sometimes took a while for even Annie to solve a problem, it usually fell into place once she was on the right track. In fact, it usually wound up looking so easy that she was embarrassed for taking so long to get it. She was sure the embarrassment would come in full force later, but for now she just felt relief at cracking this mystery.
Despite preparing to the extremes like usual, Annie was pretty much a nervous wreck from the start when she had to put it in practice. Actually holding a baby and being all alone with it for several hours could not be accurately summed up in a book after all. Without that to go on, Annie was a bundle of nerves from the beginning, which only made her more ill-equipped when Ben acted up.
But why wouldn't he act up, considering that her parents had left her alone with someone who didn't know what she was doing?
This was the first time that Ben was without his mom, dad, siblings or other family members for an entire evening. Even at just a few months old, something like that would be very scary – it certainly was to 18-year-old Annie in her first days living on her own, at both rehab and her new apartment. But 18-year-old Annie knew that her parents weren't coming back to her at the end of those nights – who knew if three-month-old Ben realized the same thing about her parents?
In any case, being left alone with a bumbling stranger couldn't have helped at all. Put that all together and he had no reason at all to be happy. Or to trust this basket case that was unable to show him everything would be okay, as far as he knew. Yet after Ben actually saw Annie laugh and look relaxed, it gave him the ability to finally calm down and laugh as well.
Annie could be furious and frustrated at someone for one moment; and yet somehow switch gears a second later to empathize with them at the drop of a hat. That explained why she even tolerated the study group enough to love them as much as she did. It helped her survive and forgive so many things from Jeff, Britta, Troy, Abed and even Shirley and Pierce; so there was no way she could hold anything against a little baby. Especially when her own inability to sooth and reassure him helped cause a lot of this.
But now that Ben was actually sane and calm for a second, Annie was going to be too. Instead of calling on tips from a book or remembering her schedule, she just used her remaining strength to bring out her inner Shirley. At least the inner Shirley that was motherly and warm and let her babies know she wouldn't let nerves stop her from caring for them. For good measure, she also reached into the inner Annie that would stop at nothing to come through for someone who needed her.
"I'm sorry, Ben," Annie said as warmly as she could muster. "I forgot you must be just as scared as I am. Well, one of me is already bad enough." Since Ben was still quiet and focused on her, Annie used this window of opportunity to finally clean his face and clothes a bit. She gently wiped him off and kept smiling at him along the way, which didn't seem to trigger any more tears or yells. So since this formula was working, she would just have to keep rolling with it.
"There we go," Annie assured once she got Ben as clean as she could get. "Now that that's settled….what do you say we start over?" She punctuated her offer by tapping Ben on his clean-for-now nose with her left forefinger. "Hi, it's nice to meet you….again. I'm your Auntie Annie," Annie got out before chuckling once again at her new name.
But the chuckling stopped when Annie realized her forefinger was still sticking out; and had been long enough for Ben to grasp it with his left hand. The sight of it brought on a combination of laughs and near-tears, especially when Annie moved her finger up and down to make it look like she was shaking hands with Ben. "Wow…it is very nice to meet you, indeed!" Annie exclaimed as her eyes watered.
After Ben finally let go, Annie composed herself enough to remember she still had feeding to do. And now that her head was cleared and filled with happy thoughts, she was smart enough to know what to do again. As such, now that Ben was smiling and focused on her, Annie put on her best smiling Disney face to keep him distracted as she reached for his food.
"You hungry enough to eat 10-ton airplanes now?" Annie asked as her eyes went wider and doe-ier than even she thought possible. At least that's what she assumed, since she couldn't see herself in a mirror; but it made Ben impressed enough to finally let a spoonful of food into his mouth either way.
"Wow, it really works on babies too," Annie commented once the Disney face wasn't necessary to make Ben keep eating. "Okay, Jeff can never know about that. But I can keep a secret if you can," she assured Ben with another laugh and smile.
Not everything went that smoothly the rest of the night, as Ben improbably wasn't cried out yet. However, Annie willed herself not to cry or panic herself anymore, as she worked on calming him down and taking care of him with a smile and a soothing tone; even in ways that weren't in the books she read. By remembering to empathize with Ben's fears, recalling her own mother's ways of settling her down when she was into that sort of thing, and the odd Disney face or two, Annie was able to survive the night and actually feel sorry that it was over when the Bennetts returned.
This allowed her to get off to a much better start when she babysat Ben the next time out, and helped her cut down on Ben's inevitable crying jags. By the start of the school year, Annie was even able to clean up Ben's messes within five minutes. The improvement wasn't lost on Shirley, who started asking her to help around even during times when she and Andre were still home. Yet given Annie's usual over-the-top school workload, it was harder for her to have entire nights free.
But somehow Annie readjusted her schedule to drop by every once in a while. At the least, it further inspired her to finish her projects even earlier, which was actually possible as it turned out. She certainly came in handy when Shirley was too exhausted by the latest Greendale debacle to fully mommy Ben when she got home. In fact, Annie was also able to lend a hand to her older children, Jordan and Elijah, when Shirley was too exhausted by Ben. And there was surely no one more fitting for them to ask for help with their schoolwork.
There were other problems with school that Annie was in a position to help with, however.
One day in February, Greendale was merciful enough to let the group go home on time; probably to set up a time travel parody or some other time consuming mishap tomorrow. In any case, Annie went over to Shirley's house with her and got there just in time to see Elijah come home with a few scrapes on his face, arms and legs. After Shirley finally finished asking Jesus what happened to her baby – and even laying a little Shirley guilt on Him for taking His eyes off Elijah – they finally found out that Elijah had been chased down by some bullies. Some of the bruises and scrapes also came from tripping while running away from them.
Shirley was relieved that Elijah had turned the other cheek as per Jesus's orders; then went to call the school and threaten eternal damnation, fire and brimstone if it didn't take action. While she let out her righteous wrath on the phone, Annie looked over Elijah's scrapes and bruises with ice and band-aids ready to hand out. She was also feeling a bit of righteous wrath herself, as years of name calling, neglect and torture in high school gave her a pathological hatred for bullies. But aside from that, there was also a bit of hard-earned, learned just-in-the-nick-of-time wisdom that she could pass on.
"You know, I don't know if this happens often, or if this was a one-time thing. I do know how bad it can affect you if you let it, though. It did a number on me when I was a few years older than you are, so I can't say it gets easier with age. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have led off with that….but it doesn't have to be that bad for you." Annie regrouped herself as she put the first band-aid on Elijah's elbow.
"If the popular and/or mean people don't like you, it has nothing to do with you. Nothing that really counts, anyway. And just because those people don't like you doesn't mean everyone won't. If you find the right friends who can pick you up and like you for who you are, that and your own self-esteem is pretty good to live on! I wish I figured that out a lot earlier….then again, I probably wouldn't be here if I did. But you still have plenty of time to do it a lot easier," Annie pointed out as she placed her second band-aid on Elijah's knee.
"And don't let those bullies make you distrust everyone either. You can still find the right friends anywhere, even where you might not be looking. Maybe you'll meet an older, richer kid who puts everyone down, but who really needs the right friends to realize he doesn't have to be alone. Or someone who's less old but still older than you….he could fool everyone else into thinking the worst of him all the time, but I bet he's not smart enough to trick you. Maybe you'll even run into two….creative types who everyone else dismisses as weirdoes, but who've learned more wisdom and friendship from movies than any other 'normal' people you know. It helps you forgive them for turning 'Inspector Spacetime' up way too loud 100 times when you're trying to sleep, that's for sure," Annie got off track as she remembered to put an ice pack on Elijah's forehead.
"Anyway, you can also find someone who looks and acts cooler than you because she's seen more of the world, but who's just as lost and confused as you anyway. But that just makes her easier to look up to, even when she talks a bit more than she probably should. She might have certain beliefs that rub other potential friends the wrong way….but it doesn't matter, because that potential friend would put that aside in a heartbeat for her and anyone else! She'd know that family is everything and there's nothing terrible enough to break it for good….not even when they betray her or don't give into her guilt every single time," Annie tried to start wrapping up.
"The point is, there are much more of these great friends out there than there are bullies, and they beat anything the bullies can do! You have a lot of time to find a bunch of them, if you haven't already. Nothing that a bunch of brainless jerks do can or should stop you from being that lucky, or doubt that you deserve to be that lucky. And I don't want you to take five or 10 years to figure that out….I'm serious about that. Okay?" Annie concluded with a serious but gentle tone. After all those words she spoke; most of which went over Elijah's head; he only responded with a nod and a smile to show he got it anyway.
"Oh, that's nice," Annie heard from behind her, and she didn't even bother to turn around to see the source. "Well, now that the school is ready to save its immortal soul, I can get back to healing my baby." Annie nodded and got up to let Shirley take over on Elijah duty. But before she stepped aside, Shirley asked, "But first, what do we say to Auntie Annie?" Annie still had to smile even though Shirley pronounced it "ahnt" instead of the "ant" way that Annie loved to use in front of her name.
"Thank you, Auntie Annie." But Elijah did pronounce it in Annie's favorite way, which made her smile all the way and bend back down for a hug. "You're welcome, sweetie….now, you keep being brave for your mommy Shirley while I check on your brother Benny, okay?" Perhaps that was a little too cutesy to say to an older kid, but Annie felt too fluffy to care. In any case, she headed out to watch over Ben in the living room, where baby talk was more of an appropriate language.
Shirley returned a while later, and Annie got up from the easy chair to hand Ben back to her. "I think he's going to heal up just fine," Shirley said once she sat back down with Ben. "And I'm sure Jesus will be back on his A-game and bring the hammer down on the devil's little minions tomorrow. If the school doesn't want to carry out His justice, I guess we know where its Holy War allegiances lie."
"Yeah, that's….quite a choice, all right," was all Annie could contribute to this type of conversation. Luckily Shirley changed its direction by stating "Well, at least I'm sure where Auntie Annie's allegiances lie, anyway."
"Oh, I love that name so much! Even when you say it wrong!" Annie couldn't stop herself from squealing. Fortunately, Shirley was able to brush that last comment aside. "I shouldn't be shocked you knew what to say to the boy. I figured you had that talent before I even asked you to babysit the first time."
"I thought you picked me because no one else was responsible enough to handle Ben," Annie questioned.
"Well, that was the first really really big reason. I mean, it's already hard enough being called their unofficial mom, and barely even getting that job done at that! Lord knows I love them, but you couldn't pay anyone else to look after those looney tunes. And you and me still try to do it for free!" an amazed Shirley stated.
"You and me?" Annie tried to clarify.
"Right….I mean, if I'm the upstanding mom fighting the futile fight to save their souls, you're at least the backup mom. Who else could get those crazies to actually do their work, or put up with Pierce or even make Jeff do….well, anything? Since you do all that, I knew Ben wouldn't be a problem for you….and neither are my other babies either."
"Heh, yeah….well, making sure babies behave is my thing, I guess…..no matter what age they are," Annie tried to play along, without giving away just how hard it was with the younger baby at first.
"I know! Seriously though….we give you a hard time for being the youngest, and for pretty good reason most of the time. Then again, we also let Jeff and Britta call themselves Greendale parents without giving them a reality check upside the head! But you're a more fitting Greendale parent, what with you educating them and nurturing them and being their moral compass and making them do better and being stressed out of your mind, just like a good mommy! You're at least a better runner-up to me than Jeff and Britta….maybe you're not as good with the guilt, even with the face, but you're on your way!" Shirley assured.
"Aw, thank you anyway, Shirley," Annie said sincerely despite letting the anyway slip. "But I'm no mom, really….I mean, the grown up babies are my best friends, and the regular babies are your babies. I can afford to be easier with them because I'm not responsible for them all the time. If I had kids of my own, I'd be so neurotic I'd turn them into me, just like my parents did. Or I'd spend so much time reading baby books that I wouldn't know how to really calm them down and I'd be crying in the corner!" Annie tried to reveal in a joking manner.
"You know, Jesus does his best listening in the crying corner. Or, um, so I'd guess," Shirley seemed to backtrack.
"In any case….I'm happy being the cool aunt who kind of spoils her friends and nephews. You're the one who really lays down the law. Besides, there's no way I want to be a mom yet….I have a lot to accomplish and set up for myself before I'm close to ready. Britta would probably say I'd ruin my potential and set feminism back even more if I went the other way….but still, that wouldn't be 100 percent wrong," Annie realized.
"Well, even Britta can be only 90 percent wrong some of the time. Of course, that one thing she's 100 percent dammed to Hell wrong in does cancel that out," Shirley calculated, and Annie certainly didn't need to ask what that one thing was; especially since she had a point to finish.
"Like I said, I can't let myself be a mom until I'm sure I wouldn't….pass on the unappealing, rigid, neurotic parts of myself. I weeded out most of the worst parts my parents left me, but I don't want my kids to have to do it themselves after 18 years too. I might be good enough to keep my friends in check….a little more than they usually are. But I won't let kids of my own put up with me until I know I can just give them the best of me. Then again, my plans outside of school don't usually hold up, so…." Annie trailed off.
"Don't worry, Annie. Even if Jesus can't keep you on the right path, your big brain and your big morals probably have a shot. Besides, you'd be too busy mommying Jeff and scolding him like a baby to have your own little bundles anyway," Shirley predicted. Annie couldn't think of a way to top that, so she gave a little thank-you smile and went to look for Ben's bottle.
Once she found it and actually had time to think, it hit her. Referring to her as Jeff's mommy, saying she would scold him like a child…..considering Jeff and Annie, it was pretty ironic and pretty extremely creepy. But considering that Shirley would be unlikely to approve if Jeff and Annie….became JeffandAnnie, and considering how she reminded her that her big brain and morals would keep her on the right path, and going over that she'd be too busy merely scolding Jeff to have little bundles…..she was good.
Even in assuring her that she was a good mommy/aunt, Shirley was still butting in and warning her about Jeff in her usual mommy fashion. She even used less guilt than usual and went right for making her creeped out. She was just too good, if not entirely effective; definitely creepy, though.
Still, she did complement her for being great with her children and with the quasi-children in the group, so perhaps it made Shirley feel that much more overprotective of Annie. It actually made her feel proud that Shirley could care about her that much; just like a real daughter must feel deep down when their mother butts into their lives in the wrong way. Her own mother butted into her affairs all the time, but that was because she cared more about her own image than her daughter in the end…..not like Shirley. Even if she wasn't the biggest Jeff and Annie fan after all; or at least a fan of them raising babies.
That combination of love and over-the-line protectiveness did show Annie she was right to think she had a long way to go to be a mom; at least by the Shirley standard. Being a cool, sometimes strict, something spoiling aunt was a lot easier to learn, even with the rough start Annie had. Her mom/aunt side loved making little cameos, giving speeches to lift up those she looked after, and occasionally even finding a mommy instinct; but it knew its limitations.
Still, it didn't mean she couldn't be proud of the practice she had gotten so far, or of how she loved being a good quasi-mom for Shirley's family; and the friends Annie loved like family. And if the day ever came when Shirley's subtle Jeff warnings really were for nothing…..perhaps the little Bennetts could be used in some way to get Mommy Shirley off Auntie Annie and Uncle Jeff's back.
It would be pretty underhanded of Annie….but Shirley did teach her that every good mom/aunt had to have tricks like that in their arsenal. So in that regard, it would be her own fault; and with that, Annie could see why Shirley liked playing the guilt card so much.
It was just one of the good tools of being a mom; with another great one being that mother knew best. After years of Annie being told that she didn't know what was best for her….it was quite an appealing concept; even if she wanted no part of the other appealing concepts for some time. But Auntie Annie could still know a thing or two to get by until then.