The Baby-Sitters Club #78: Claudia and the Crazy Peaches

Mrs. Kishi has some big news, but she decides to let Peaches tell Claudia herself. It turns out that Peaches is pregnant. A few days later, she calls and announces that they are moving to Stoneybrook but they can’t move into their new house for one month, so Mrs. Kishi tells them that they can move in with them. Peaches also lets them know that she quit her job so she can focus full-time on being a mother.

Peaches almost instantly puts a wrench in Claudia’s life. Peaches takes her shopping for baby furniture and asks her for advice on everything she buys. Claudia is so excited about having a new baby around that she asks Mary Anne to teach her how to knit. Since Mimi taught her, it will be like having something from Mimi for the baby.

One day, Peaches decides to cook a big dinner for everyone. She takes Claudia to a fancy gourmet food store, they spend all night cooking, and put on vests and bowties to serve dinner. Claudia quickly notices that she has no time for her artwork let alone school and she keeps getting further behind. Every time she makes some time for schoolwork, Peaches has another idea.

One night, she wakes her up because she has a craving for pizza at midnight. After disappearing for a few hours, they start home and Peaches sheepishly admits that she didn’t leave a note. Mrs. Kishi and everyone else are awake with all the lights on in the house. She lectures them both and Claudia explodes, telling her to blame Peaches for being the irresponsible one.

Peaches and Claudia are way too polite with each other after that. Peaches asks Claudia to help her pick out baby stuff, and she says she needs to wait so she can do homework. Peaches agrees and suggests the next day. Claudia comes home ready to work on a new sculpture and Peaches is waiting. They have another fight and Peaches tells her she has too much stuff to deal with to handle a sulky teenager too. Claudia stuffs the blanket in the closet, but Mary Anne asks her to keep working on it.

The BSC is having a problem with a new charge named Natalie Springer. She asks Claudia to be her friend and gets really clingy. She even helps Claudia clean her house. No matter who sits for her, she wants to be their best friend. They decide to get her around other kids to help her make new friends. Shannon invites a bunch of kids over, but Natalie gets really bossy and acts so mean that the other kids take off.

Jessi and a few other sitters try introducing her to other kids, but she either acts too shy or too bossy. Jessi takes her to her house to meet a bunch of kids and they run off playing games. She sees Charlotte and Becca playing jump rope and starts playing with them. Claudia talks to her about being a good friend and they make a list of things a good friend should do. She realizes that she broke some of the rules with Peaches and decides to apologize.

When she gets home though, she hears Janine on the phone and learns that Peaches lost the baby. Claudia blames herself, thinking that she put too much stress on the baby. When Peaches comes back, Claudia apologizes and Peaches tells her that it wasn’t her fault. They cry and bond together, and Claudia shows her the blanket, which she says will be for the next baby. At the end of the book, Peaches and Russ move into their new house and decide that they’ll try again in awhile.

*Peaches’ house sells and the seller demands that they move in something like two weeks. Really? There is no way in hell that I could pack up my rental house and get it all moved that fast, let alone move from a house I owned.

*What happened to Mimi’s room? In this book, Peaches and Russ stay in the den and no one mentions them having a guest room.

*I have a cat named Patches (kitten actually) and almost every time I wrote Peaches, I started to write Patches LOL.

*The timeline in this series really pisses me off. This is book 78 and Peaches loses the baby. They decide to take some time before trying again, but in around 20 books, she’s already had another baby.

*The entire club has suggestions for Peaches from playing the baby music to playing French language tapes. I’m not totally sure on this, but has anyone in the club ever met Peaches? I know that Claudia mentions how much Stacey loves Peaches and Russ, but I don’t think there was a book when she actually met them.

*Mary Anne suggests that she knit a pair of booties because her blanket design is too complicated, which just sounds crazy.

*As “strict” as the Kishis are, why don’t they ever tell Peaches to back off and give Claudia some space? Then again, Peaches knows how much trouble she has in school and still convinces her to put her homework off.

*I thought Peaches was little too rash in her decision making. She was only a month or two along and decided to quit her job, sell her house, and move to a new town.