Ten The Hard Way

I picked up a bit of extra cash today.

By babysitting.

A three year old and a five year old, both girls.

My neighbor down the street has started working part time doing mortgage closings. Because her hours vary its not always easy for her to get a sitter. Because Bunny loves playing with girls, I offered my services. I figured we could play outside or go to the park down the block. No problem.

But today when they came over, it was overcast and kind of cool out so we had to play inside. Which meant I had three girls under the age of five in my house with no other parent in sight.

First we colored. But coloring wasn't enough so we had to add stamps and stickers to the mix. Then they discovered my stash of pom pons and we had to get the glue out. Needless to say there were sticker backs everywhere and pom pons glued to non-paper surfaces.

After coloring we moved on to Play Doh. When its just Bunny, I maintain a strict no color mixing policy. We get one color at a time. She is allowed to save a bit from each color to mix but generally the colors remain clean. But how can you police three girls? You can't. The colors just get mixed. And Play Doh gets everywhere. I mean everywhere. Like on the cat everywhere.

After they grew bored of the Play Doh we moved on to the Dino house. "Don't you have any dolls for the house?" Dolls? What are dolls? Oh right the original inhabitants of the house. Got it. They're around here somewhere. "Why don't they live in the house?" Bunny doesn't like dolls. "Why? Dolls are awesome." Bunny thinks dinosaurs are awesome. "Oh."

"Do you have any dress-up clothes?" Well we have one tutu and a few scarves. "Do you have any dress-up shoes?" Shoes? Why don't you just where your own shoes? "Because dress-up shoes are more fun." Yeah, we don't have any of that. "Why?" Because Bunny doesn't play dress-up. "But dress-up is cool."

"Oooh is that nail polish?" Yes. "Can you paint our toes?" Um, I guess. So three girls line up on the sofa. "Do mine first." "No do mine!" "Me!!!!" Oh crap I knocked over the nail polish, on to the rug.

"Ooh lets play with the blocks." "Build a tower." "Knock the tower over!" Undecipherable screaming and jumping up and down.

"Lets go upstairs and jump on the bed."

"Lets chase the kitties."

"Lets have a snack."

"Lets dump all the toys on the floor."

Thank goodness your mother is here. "No we don't want to go home, we want to stay here." At which point all three girls run upstairs and hide in the closet. Come on, its time to go home. "No!" They are finally coaxed out of the closet and back downstairs.

Its clean up time. The three year old opens the door and starts running down the block to her house. The five year old picks up some blockes. Bunny just jumps up and down clapping her hands, "this is so fun, momma. Lets do this again momma."

Um yeah sure. Okay Amy, here your kids in one piece. The house is still standing. Nothing is broken. Its a success!

Did I mention they were only here for an hour and a half? It seemed like 10.

Does anyone know how to get nail polish (pink) out of a rug (tan)?

Babysitter auditions

Bunny has never had a non-family member babysitter since she was adopted a year and a half ago. Well we have plans to go to the opera on Friday with my parents (aren't we so cultured). Bubs' parents are working that night so we were left with no other option then to use a babysitter.

Luckily Bunny's godparents volunteered. So we had them over for dinner tonight to see how Bunny would react. Well I can say the experiment was a huge success. Bunny is totally in love with David and thinks Beth is pretty cool too. We made a big production out of leaving for a walk around the block to see how she'd react. She said goodbye, looked out the window to watch us go and then she turned to play with David.

Of course there is no telling how she'll react when we are gone for more than 10 minutes, but when I asked if she wanted David and Beth to babysit she said "Yes, I love Aunt David." So we've got that going for us.