I started babysitting when I was eleven. I wasn't what one would call a "good" babysitter, but no one ever got seriously injured or ran away on my watch. When my son turned 11, I had no doubts that he could do 100% better than the job I did. To give him an extra edge, I signed him up for the first Safe Sitter class I could find.
He was the only boy in the class. He took one look in the room, saw all the girls, and started to back away slowly from the registration desk. The class instructor gingerly placed her arm around him, led him into the room and shut the door behind her. Eight hours later, I picked up my new Safe Sitter. Reaching for his certificate, I asked him if he felt like he was ready to babysit his 5 year old sister. "Well, I can save her if she's choking." was all he said.
I should have been more in tune with his aversion to the question. I should have picked up on the fact that he didn't ask how soon he could start babysitting. I should have thought about exactly who I was asking him to babysit for.
My daughter is difficult for me to babysit. She has eaten Desitin, cut her own hair, stuck a knife in a light socket, drawn Emojis on my work papers, consumed more than the recommended daily dosage of Flintstones vitamins in a day, and pruned plants that did not require pruning, all on my watch. I felt for the road he had ahead of him. I really did. But a built in babysitter liberated me. I could not wait to start exercising this reduced rate child labor.
This summer, there is a period of approximately 1 hour after I leave for work until my mother makes it over to babysit them. I have our routine down to a science to ensure chaos does not erupt before my mom makes it over. I have thrown bowls of cereal and episodes of Disney's "Jessie" on Netflix at my daughter. This routine buys me at least an hour. Things have to look calm when my mom arrives or she will start insisting that I drop them off to her on my way to work. Safe Sitter to her is just a piece of paper. In her mind, she is the only safe sitter, and apparently, I proved that with the Flintstones incident.
For the first few days, this arrangement went well. I was making out even better than I had imagined. I was able to pay my son in Froyo and entice him with extra time on the Xbox for watching the tyrant. I got no texts from him saying "Come home", "She's being awful", "She just spit on me", Then one morning I drove half way around the block and realized that I had forgotten my coffee. I pulled back up to the house, ran up the stairs, got to the front door and heard screaming. I opened the door and saw what appeared to be Lord of the Flies up in there. My son was standing in his ill-fitting tighty whities and my daughter was perched on the back of the couch screaming bloody murder . They were fighting over a blanket and boogers allegedly wiped on an iPad screen. Ironically, I looked down at the conch we found at the beach this summer and started to pick it up, but my kids would not have gotten the reference. Thank God no one was wielding a pointed stick.
My son sat down on the couch and commenced to scrubbing the boogers off his iPad screen. I found my coffee and added a shot of Bailey's to it. I found a second blanket then stuck around until my mom made it over. When she walked though the door, she asked how they were doing. "They're good" I said smiling and walked out the door. Hey, no one got seriously injured or ran away on his watch...
He was the only boy in the class. He took one look in the room, saw all the girls, and started to back away slowly from the registration desk. The class instructor gingerly placed her arm around him, led him into the room and shut the door behind her. Eight hours later, I picked up my new Safe Sitter. Reaching for his certificate, I asked him if he felt like he was ready to babysit his 5 year old sister. "Well, I can save her if she's choking." was all he said.
I should have been more in tune with his aversion to the question. I should have picked up on the fact that he didn't ask how soon he could start babysitting. I should have thought about exactly who I was asking him to babysit for.
My daughter is difficult for me to babysit. She has eaten Desitin, cut her own hair, stuck a knife in a light socket, drawn Emojis on my work papers, consumed more than the recommended daily dosage of Flintstones vitamins in a day, and pruned plants that did not require pruning, all on my watch. I felt for the road he had ahead of him. I really did. But a built in babysitter liberated me. I could not wait to start exercising this reduced rate child labor.
This summer, there is a period of approximately 1 hour after I leave for work until my mother makes it over to babysit them. I have our routine down to a science to ensure chaos does not erupt before my mom makes it over. I have thrown bowls of cereal and episodes of Disney's "Jessie" on Netflix at my daughter. This routine buys me at least an hour. Things have to look calm when my mom arrives or she will start insisting that I drop them off to her on my way to work. Safe Sitter to her is just a piece of paper. In her mind, she is the only safe sitter, and apparently, I proved that with the Flintstones incident.
For the first few days, this arrangement went well. I was making out even better than I had imagined. I was able to pay my son in Froyo and entice him with extra time on the Xbox for watching the tyrant. I got no texts from him saying "Come home", "She's being awful", "She just spit on me", Then one morning I drove half way around the block and realized that I had forgotten my coffee. I pulled back up to the house, ran up the stairs, got to the front door and heard screaming. I opened the door and saw what appeared to be Lord of the Flies up in there. My son was standing in his ill-fitting tighty whities and my daughter was perched on the back of the couch screaming bloody murder . They were fighting over a blanket and boogers allegedly wiped on an iPad screen. Ironically, I looked down at the conch we found at the beach this summer and started to pick it up, but my kids would not have gotten the reference. Thank God no one was wielding a pointed stick.
My son sat down on the couch and commenced to scrubbing the boogers off his iPad screen. I found my coffee and added a shot of Bailey's to it. I found a second blanket then stuck around until my mom made it over. When she walked though the door, she asked how they were doing. "They're good" I said smiling and walked out the door. Hey, no one got seriously injured or ran away on his watch...
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