Adventures in Babysitting

AJ and Me in September 2004

(I don't remember my hair being that short!)

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Last night was crazy and fun. My SIL has been almost living at the hospital since June 4th and she has 3 kids. Along with all the trauma of her husband's three brain surgeries, she has also been working crazy logistics moving all three kids around to various places. She finally hit a snag on Tuesday for AJ (aged 3) for Wednesday night. I said, "I'll keep him!" I think that once the words left my lips, it scared both of us. But being two crazy people we decided it was a good idea. A lot of you wouldn't think twice about keeping a three-year-old for the night, but me? Not so much a kid person. I knew it would be an adventure. I think the last time I spent the evening with a three-year-old was when my daughter was three and she'll be twenty-three in August. Some of the highlights:

• About 10 minutes into his bath he announced that he needed to "get out and pee-pee." I was very impressed because I had to watch my daughter like a hawk - she really really enjoyed peeing in the bathtub.
• I forgot about how "whys" three-year-olds are. The one that floored me was once he asked where Uncle "My Sweetie" was. I said, "He's in the bathroom." AJ asked, "Why?" I didn't even have a good answer. It's not a question I am often asked.
• When AJ got out of the tub and I dried him, I said, "Oh, your clothes are still in the living room." He took off naked for the living room and My Sweetie ran in and closed the front door. That still makes me laugh. God forbid a neighbor would pass by and see a naked three-year-old!
• AJ has the attention span of a gnat. It took longer to get the coloring book and open the crayons than it did for him to color. He colored a boy's pants leg blue - about a 1" X 1/4" area and he was done.
• My Sweetie keeps an old New Year's eve horn on the end table to blow at Rufus when he attacks Jake (he is not a yeller. MY Sweetie, I mean. Jake, he can yell.) and AJ found it. Yeah that was fun. He REALLY liked blowing the horn. As smart as I am it took about 15 minutes to come up with a good enough distraction to sneak the horn away. I quickly tossed it behind my back to My Sweetie and it disappeared. AJ forgot all about it until this morning, but I was honestly able to tell him I didn't know where it was.
• He wanted to watch Charlotte's Web but got bored after about 20 minutes so I gave him my bucket of little plastic farm animals. He got a kick out of matching the little animals with the characters. Then he wanted to watch Happy Feet. He got restless after about 10 minutes so I gave him two stuffed penguins to play with. I wonder if he thinks I have toys to go with every kid movie?
• He kept saying how soft our couch was so I thought that was a hint. I made his little bed on the couch, but he kept getting up and running around. I had already decided to sit with him until he went to sleep. Being the clever cat that I am I realized that "Frasier" was about to come on. I thought "If anything will put a three-year-old to sleep, I bet it's 'Frasier'." Don't get me wrong. I love the show. I think I own every season on DVD, but two men in suits discussing opera tickets? I just felt it would do the trick. Well it came on at 11:00. I switched over. Two minutes later AJ looked up at me and said, "I really like sleeping on your very soft couch." Then he rolled over to face the back of the couch. He was sound asleep at 11:07.
• This last part is CRAZY. I went to bed at 12:30!! (In case you don't know, when I "go to bed early" it's 2:00 a.m.) I was tired.

Lisa picked up AJ around 9:15 this morning. After they left, I remembered picking my daughter up from my Mom's house one time when Kate was about 3. Mom had kept Kate for the whole weekend (a VERY rare occurrence) and was ABSOLUTELY FRAZZLED when I got there. She said, "How do you do this??!! I couldn't get anything done. I couldn't even cook dinner. "StepDad" had to go out for food both nights!" I remember thinking she was silly. I said, "Mom you had TWO kids and you cooked dinner every night." She said, "But I'm a lot older now and don't have that energy." I really just thought she was being silly as hell. I get it now.