Two weeks
ago, our oldest granddaughter came over to help me babysit her two youngest
cousins. Knowing the intrepid
personality of our three-year-old grandson and the strong will of his
one-year-old sister, I was going to need back up.
While Mommy
and Daddy took off for a one-week cruise of the Caribbean to “get away from it
all and reconnect,” HoneyBunch and I (mostly I) were jumping into the thick of
it.
I’ve
babysat before plenty of times, but not for eight days and eight nights
straight. That’s one hundred and ninety
two (192) hours! This would be the longest time ever for me without some sort
of respite – nights off or maybe a weekend in between there somewhere without two
munchkins watching me use the bathroom.
We usually watch the babies over a weekend so HoneyBunch is home from
work and helps with the diapering or he provides entertainment, but this gig
would run from one Friday through the next Saturday a week later, ergo the need
to hire a “mommy’s helper.”
Thank
goodness our oldest grandchild is in high school; she is about to take Driver’s
Ed and her wish list includes clothes, cars, and cosmetics.
She is
the oldest to three little brothers and she needed the money and was willing to
sacrifice her sanity for one week to earn some, so I “hired” her to help me for
five of the eight days.
The week
went as I suspected. The three-year-old
was intrepid and the one-year-old was strong willed. Both fought sleep and sought adventure. Both
made sure we “grownups” knew who ran things.
By Friday
the fifteen-year-old missed home.
Better
the little brothers you know than the little brothers you don’t.
When I
let her know twenty-four hours ahead of time when we would be returning her to
her home on Friday, she fired up both her cell phone and her iPod – the modern
versions of smoke signals or jungle drums among the young. A smile reappeared
on her haggard face. There was a skip in
her step and she started speaking in future tense. “I am going to miss these
babies.” “I will remember this summer
always.”
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, sure.
I couldn’t
blame her. As a matter of fact, I envied
her as we drove away from her home and headed back with the two babies
jabbering away in the back seat of the truck. I still had twenty four hours ahead of me
without a mommy’s helper, but at least I too could start talking in future
tense.
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