Adventures in Babysitting

Story time. Want to know why I'm afraid of other people's kids? Read on...

I think it started with the fact that I was NEVER around kids. I'm the youngest of 7 and separated by five years from my next brother. I grew up in a strange neighborhood that was cut off by very busy roads, big fields, and a ward boundary. We didn't really have a traditional neighborhood. When I was really young my neighbors were older couples who's kids were late teens/early twenties...my babysitters...THEY were my friends until age 5. There was one family who lived across a grove of trees I called the woods who had a girl my age. She was autistic, but at 5, I didn't notice anything different until we started school and everything that was so easy for me was a huge struggle for her. Even then, I remember being afraid of her younger crazy brother.

Most of my friends in elementary were the youngest, or close to it, in their family as well so babies were a mystery to me.

My first real up-close-and-personal experience with kids was when I became an aunt at age 9. We'll get to that later.

My first babysitting gig was when I was probably 10 or 11. A young couple was renting a house behind ours. The mom was my merry miss leader at church and they asked me to babysit their baby for an hour or so.

Scared, but wanting to be "grown up" I said yes and was mildly optimistic about it.

I entered the strange house and plopped on the couch next to the swing containing the sleeping baby.

"He's not feeling well, so he'll probably just sleep the whole time" she said.

I CRINGE.... he did not sleep the whole time, quite the contrary. He screamed bloody murder the whole TWO AND A HALF HOURS. I had no idea what to do. Any efforts to comfort him brought more screams. Yet, for whatever reason, I didn't walk half a block, or call and ask my mom for help.

"Never again," I told myself as I walked home confused about what my peers found so darn great about this sliver of responsibility.
                                                                                    ~

My new motto didn't hold water though because I was sent to West Valley to live with my brother during the summer weekdays when I was 13 and 14 so I could watch my 2 year old nephew and 6 month old niece while their parents worked.

So there I was, in a trailer park in West Valley (probably the roughest city in Utah), afraid to go outside, clueless about how to care for children, and basically watching Alice in Wonderland and eating fish sticks every day for many weeks of my summer.
                                                                                       ~

Age 14 I had a friend who had a regular babysitting gig watching two girls who's mom was divorced and worked. One day she had an orthodontist appointment and couldn't watch the girls after school so she called me. "OK, Fine!" I said, thinking two older girls who were very used to babysitters couldn't possibly be a problem. And they weren't. The problem was the mother of their father. Grandma wasn't allowed to see the children outside of specially arranged times. "Don't let Grandma in" were my only instructions.

She must have known that a "new" babysitter was watching them and she showed up only moments after I did. I wouldn't let her in the house and told her she would have to come back when their mom was home, but instead of leaving, she wandered around their house, peeked in the windows, talked to us through closed doors. UGH! It was terrifying.

"Never again!" I said as I walked home with tears of relief streaming down my face.
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Before he left on his mission, or maybe when he got back... I honestly don't remember, my brother Richard would "babysit" a neighbor's old and ailing aunt and uncle who couldn't be left alone. They suffered from Alzheimer's or something. He loved it. He thought they were so funny and interesting. One night he couldn't help so they asked me. I was probably 16 but totally unprepared for what this would involve. I was told they would sleep and she would be back soon. 

They did not sleep. NO... They did not. UGH! The old man kept yelling for help. When I asked what he needed I couldn't understand him. Until I finally understood him and panic dripped from every pore. He wanted me to change his catheter bag. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I told him I didn't know how to help him and that his niece would be home soon. Of course that was no comfort to the old man with a full pee bag who didn't understand why I couldn't help him.

I spent the rest of the evening (of course, longer than expected) in a ball on the couch. When the lady's older son came home I told him that the old man needed help. He yelled some curse word at the man and went downstairs. I whispered after him, "Can I go?" I left so fast, I didn't care that I didn't even get paid.
                                                                                         ~

Last, but certainly not least. I spent the entire summer of my sixteenth year at my brother's house... again. Only this time, they lived in the middle of no-where-mountains outside of Park City. I wanted to go to New York City with my orchestra the next summer. An adventure that came with a hefty price tag. My mom agreed to pay the bill if I would help my brother and his wife out with child care for the summer.

Their house was nice but isolated. Going outside was certainly possible but I was afraid of moose...and bears, but mostly moose. I don't know why, I guess I had heard stories of moose trampling people that accidentally got between them and their babies and I was paralyzed with fear. I think we went out two times that summer. TWO!

I spent day after day watching the kids...and a lot of movies (this time I watched A Goofy Movie daily). Sometimes I was alone 10 hours at a time. Some weekends my mom did not want to come get me only to bring me back a day or two later so I stayed with them. Weekends were hard. I was a naive 16 year old with not a clue as to things outside of Provo, UT. My brother, 16 years older than myself, and his wife, had seen (and done) a lot in the world. Things that I had only seen snippets of in movies.  One weekend in particular we went to a neighboring cabin for a little party. They had a teenage daughter who was wild and outgoing. Adults drank wine coolers and beer, laughed loudly, and teased me a lot. I pretended to be cool, but lets face it.... I wasn't. I was incredibly uncomfortable. I was furious with my brother for taking me there.

This particular family had some three wheelers and they put us teenagers on them for a ride. Having never really driven one before I was nervous but I did OK until....while speeding along a dusty gravel road trying to keep up with the other girl, my front wheel got stuck in a rut that sent me off the road and down a huge hill and into a tree. The three wheeler flipped over me and tumbled further down the hill. I laid there stunned, embarrassed, shaking and hurt.

I didn't think it could get any worse... it did.

I don't recall why, or what it was exactly. They had a phone, but it was expensive or didn't always work. I can't remember. Most days I did not have a car so we were pretty stuck. Isolated is the perfect word. It made me nervous then, it would make me nervous now.

One day the phone rang. It was my brother. There was a fire on the mountain and they were evacuating all the cabins....NOW! He had miraculously left his truck that day and he told me to load up the kids and get off the mountain.

Problem. His truck was a manual transmission (I had maybe driven a manual once before) and I had certainly never driven that nasty little truck.

I was scared and shaky, not knowing just how close the fire was. The kids were loud and UN-apologetic in their desire NOT to leave home.  My nephew screamed and told me I  was a horrible driver.

I stalled 10 times getting out of their drive.

I struggled to downshift as we barreled down the mountain on windy dirt roads because the brakes were non-existent. I thought we were going to die! Either we were going to drive straight off a cliff or be devoured by a forest fire.

I seriously kissed the ground when I finally reached the freeway where I met my sister-in-law. Then I joined that teenage girl for a fun round of flashing cars as they sped by. No...I didn't flash any cars, but she did. Punk!

The fire changed direction and was quickly under control, I think we were able to be back to the cabin by bed time... It didn't matter. I was scarred.

"Never again!" I said when that summer was over. It was worth the awesome trip to New York with my friends...barely. I would have gladly flipped burgers a millions times instead though....and I did, that fall. Blah!

Now that I am older I have had much better experiences with watching other people's children. I've had a few more not so great experiences too. But I think the damage is done. No matter how well I know the kids, how good I know they are, how much I want to help a friend in need, my soul fills with dread and fear each and every time I know I will be responsible for a little human being that is not my own. I can't help it. I've found I do best when I don't have days to worry about it though.

I try not to let it stop me from helping...in fact, I'm "watching" my friend's kids today (this was written a few days ago). I say "watching" because one is the sweetest little baby on the planet and the other just plays with Marisa the whole time. It's a pleasure and would do it again in a heartbeat. Not to mention she's taking my kids in a week and she brought me chocolate dipped strawberries and cookies. If all babysitting was so nice...I wouldn't have a problem.

So, there you have it. My self analyzing reasons for my insanity. ;)

Tinker Bell Birthday Party

I think I'm sufficiently recovered enough to write about the birthday party.

I planned the party for at least three weeks. The positive side to this is that I had plenty of time to get ready. The negative side is that it's way too much time for things to get out of hand.

Actually, I think I kept things pretty simple, but I did spend more money than I would prefer. I kept telling myself that my kids don't get birthday parties every year, or even every other year, so it's OK to make it big. 

The other problem with the advanced party planning is that it gave me plenty of time to get extremely nervous. And I did. I DO NOT LIKE being responsible for other peoples kids. I'm sure I will tell you all about WHY I don't like it, in another post, but just know it gives me heart palpitations, cold sweats, nightmares, canker sores, pimples and any other stress related irritation you can think of. What can I say... I'm just a little bit crazy.

Anyway, crazy lady aside, the party turned out pretty good.

For decorations I found this really cute idea on pintrest and I just had to try it.

So, I bought the thin plastic tablecloths at the dollar store and stuck them to the ceiling with painters tape. I only did a half circle though because the ceiling is vaulted and gets a little complicated on the other side. Still I love how it turned out. I used the leftover bits of tablecloth to make those little puffs on the windows.

 In fact, if you ever want to decorate with little puffs like this, go buy a cheap table cloth or tissue paper from the dollar store and make them by cutting equal lengths, layering them on top of each other and tying them in the middle. You could probably get three puffs from one table cloth. These things were 3 for $9 at the party store. YIKES!

I made mine really quick... like 30 seconds quick, but if you spend a little more time, they can be super pretty. Like these.

 I got these wall stickers online although, you can find similar ones at Walmart in home improvement section and in their gift wrap section. I didn't think about that till it was too late though. 

Little fairies and butterflies were hiding throughout our house. Now, they decorate Marisa's walls. I like it when party decorations can last beyond the day of the party.

Then, I bought the plates and cups to go with the theme and some pink and green napkins from Ikea.

For the cake we went the cupcake route. Much easier when it comes time to serve the kids. I even pre-scooped the ice cream into cupcake liners and had them waiting in the freezeer (another pintrest idea) so that I wouldn't have some kids who were done eating and some that hadn't even gotten anything yet.

Anyway, here they are. The Tinker Bell rings were on amazon for about $3/12. The chocolate butterflies were something I saw on Rachael Ray a few weeks ago (messy but pretty easy). The pretty liners were at JoAnns.

For activities, I tried to plan 1.5 hours of fun for the kids. This is hard to do because you never know how long things are actually going to last.

First, we had the girls get a "fairy makeover" as soon as they came.

They got to pick wings (a convenient dollar store find). They could pick a temporary tattoo. They could pick some sticker ear rings and then they picked silk flowers (from the dollar store) to hot glue to a headband (also from the dollar store).  They were decked out!

This was a good thing to do first because everyone kind of came at a different time so I could help each of them without a whole lot of "me first!"s.

Once everyone was ready, we moved on to a game. We played a bug toss game, converted from the star toss game we played at Roman's 5th birthday party. I was going to make some bug shaped bean bags but as time got closer, and I still hadn't made them, I just bought some bouncy balls that were painted like lady bugs.

 Almost all the girls like this game so I let them each have a few turns to eat up some time. You can see that the wings were showing their price.. everyone kind of looked like a sad fairy with their wings all folded up, but oh well.

Next, we did a "fix Tinker Bell's wand" ie. pin the tail on the donkey game. Simple...

Then it was cake and ice cream time. 

It's so funny, some kids ate only the frosting, some only ate the cake. I don't think there was one kid who ate all of both. I'm a cake only kind of gal so I totally get it.

Then it was pinata time. I remembered that at Roman's party the candy was all anyone cared about after the pinata so I saved this one for close to the end.

The tinker bell pinata is a pull string pinata. So instead of hitting it, you pull a string. Only one string is supposed to open the trap door that is supposed to let the candy fall. I have heard that "supposed to" doesn't always happen which was the case for us as well.

The trap door opened on the second string pull and it was not even  the "magic string". Even worse, the candy stayed wedged in there like nothing had happened. So... I let each girl pull a string anyway then I shook the candy out. Oh well. they only care about the candy. Had they been boys, I have a feeling they would have been super disappointed.

The silver lining is that... it's totally re-useable. Just tape up that trap door and use it like a "real" pinata. Anyone want it? I'm pretty sure we have no use for it.

Then, after everyone had gathered up their candy, it was time for presents. It wasn't 10 seconds after I said "time for presents" and Marisa had two of them opened.

 She loved all of the girly presents.

After presents  I took the kids outside to blow bubbles for a bit. Then, with about 10 minutes before the party was supposed to end, I was through all my plans. I asked the kids if they wanted to play the games again or play in Marisa's room. They all just wanted to play in her room so I let them.

Then as scattered as they came, they gradually all went home. As soon as the last girl left i melted into a pool of melted mommy. Not a minute later, I got a GIANT knot in my back. The kind that makes it hard do anything... even breath. Ugh!

So... it's over. YEA! Marisa liked it YEA! It's OVER YEA! I'm praying that Roman just wants to go to Jumpin' Jacks for his birthday party. I've planted the seed.... I'm just patiently waiting for it to magically become the best idea ever! ;)

Birthday Fun!

So this week was Marisa's birthday... You already know this.

Here is what we did to celebrate:

The cake. A copy of the one you can buy at the local bakery... only this time, it actually was cheaper as apposed to this one a few years ago. And the fairies much better than the ones on the bakery cake. At least that's what I thought. We were at Macey's on Friday and they had the exact cake sitting out on their counter and Marisa said "Why didn't you just buy the cake here mom?".... "why don't you just tell me you hate me and that I'm ruining your life now instead of waiting till you are a teenager, Marisa?".... no, I didn't really say that. The concept of money hasn't exactly sunk in for her. $40 for a cake! YOUCH! This one was closer to $20 and a couple hours and she got some pretty cool fairy toys out of it.

I'm getting faster at this cake decorating stuff. I didn't even have to stay up all hours of the night to get this one done!

Her actual birthday was slightly uneventful. We went to ballet, she played and patiently waited for the evening when we would go to Carls Jr for dinner and have the cousins over for cake and ice cream.

Carl's Jr was about as horrible as it has ever been, but she didn't really notice, in fact, after being SO excited about her birthday all day, she was kind of burnt out by the time we got there. But, there was a MEAN boy in the play place, he was hitting and yelling and blocking the way, and... I'm pretty sure he PEED in the play place. FAN-TASTICK! I was about to go throw down on his dad who sat there and did nothing about any of it, but frankly, he was a little scary.  So, we didn't stay long and Marisa didn't even play in the germ infested plague place but oh well. Needless to say, Everyone got a really good scrub down when we got home.

For presents, Marisa got her Tinkerbell dolls, a Princess Celestia pony, a "makeup chart" (this is what she calls her princess makeup kit), a barbie and some lip gloss from some cousins, a bunny pillow pet from some other cousins and a Belle dress. She has been playing with everything non-stop since then.

She LOVED her birthday and what a sweet little 5 year old I have. She thanked me repeatedly for the cake and the presents.

Saturday she had a party with friends. This is something I allow when my kids turn 5,8 and probably 12. I'll save the details for the next post... she was in fairy heaven. I was a basket case! ;)

FIVE!

They say that's how old she is now... but I refuse to believe it.

Brand New

One Year Old

Two Years Old

Three Years Old

Four Years Old

FIVE!

Happy Birthday Girly!

Run, Run, Run!

So, I have this friend Dorothy who is a REALLY good mom. Like.. REALLY good. She does so much for her 5 kids and she really centers her life around them. Something I think I struggle with when it comes to being a mom.

She is also a runner... something else I struggle with. I was going to start again in February and Still haven't run a step. Meh!

Anyway, she has been putting together this genius fun thing to get her kids to run and get some exercise in preparation for the Hershey Track Meet. Then to make the running more fun, she has invited a whole bunch of her friends' children.

So, the first week (that we went anyway) we went to the track and she put the kids in relay teams and they each took turns running a lap and they would see how many laps their team could run in an hour. (This is something we would do in x-country in high school only it was 4 hours and each lap was a mile UGH!)

In between laps the kids would eat gummy worms and play with the other kids who weren't running.

Roman ran 6 laps, Marisa ran 4 and I think Ezra ran 2. It was hard but everyone was smiling and having a good time. Something that would never happen if I just took my kids to the track and told them to run.

Another activity was at a park and everyone brought prizes from home or the dollar store to add to the prize pool. Then, for each lap you run around the park, you get to pick a prize.

Everyone stretching before the run

Three boys.... NOT running. ;)

The kids thought that was awesome and they each came home with three prizes that they were so proud of because they EARNED them.

She also did a few other fun things like Ultimate Frisbee and a day where they all ran home from school together but since we don't live by them we couldn't do that one. 

Fun ways to get your kids exercising huh? I'm so glad she included us. We had a really fun time!