At the age of six I had one of the worst babysitters hands down, while she watched movies and talked on the phone with her friends she made me color. That was fun for about three seconds and when I stood up to do something else she demanded that I continue to color, that went on until my parents got home. I hate coloring to this day because of it, maybe other things influenced me like bad grades in Art (which honestly who gets a bad grade in art, it’s pretty fucking simple).
I decided I would never be a babysitter like that, and that was my first mistake.
The first set of children I babysat were my neighbors, and they were weird. I was team babysitting with my friend Chelsea and at some point Lisa (the daughter) ninja jump kicked off the couch and smacked Chelsea in the face. Chelsea sent her to timeout. I sat outside with Lisa and explained that she wasn’t in trouble, Chelsea just needed some time to cool off. Lisa told her Mom that I had sent her to timeout, her Mom got pissed off, called my Mom and explained the situation. Without talking to me, questioning my motives, nor getting the full story my Mom replied “Then I assume your daughter deserved it.” And hung up the phone, she didn’t tell me that happened until last year.
The next set of children I watched were twins Conner and Nancy, sweet as could be. In the middle of July they devised an ingenious plan to catch Santa Claus. It had about a 99.9% chance of failure but we worked hard at it anyway. The arrangement involved a video camera, toilet paper, a chimney and a trip wire; super ghetto, really ambitious. When their parents got home I was fired on the spot and paid only half of the agreed upon price, because they were livid that I might have potentially fueled the fire for them to comprehend there was no Santa Claus (sorry if I ruined that for anyone through this blog), but honestly they were ten I had known since I was four, not to mention it was July, plus the 99.9% failure rate.
Caitlyn, my cat stealing ex-bestfriend and I team babysat two little boys’ ages under one and three. There is a balance one must have when hanging out with a friend and watching young children, that balance does not include walking on a treadmill for no reason. The youngest boy freaked the fuck out when Caitlyn and I began walking on the treadmill. His brother said “You should get off.” But in a really little kid voice and probably not such a well formed sentence. The baby started bouncing up and down, Caitlyn and I jumped off, the tread kept going, we tried to push the off button, it kept going, we tried to pull the emergency stop tassel but it was already out and the tread was still whirring slowly but enough that one knew it was still on. The baby stood up, extended his foot out and placed it on the tread; he landed softly on the tread which carried him to the wall and there he lay between the wall and the treadmill smiling up at us like it was the most ridiculously fun thing he had ever done. By choice I never babysat with a friend again.
Jacob and Jackson were both awesome kids, though Jackson was a baby so I have no idea if he was actually awesome. Their parents would lock us into the house, dead bolt the door, set the alarm, and left me with a list of emergency numbers a block long. One day while Jackson slept, Jacob and I found a lizard, Jacob was about four and it seemed like he had never seen a lizard before. I told him we should let it out, but first I had to make sure I shut off the alarm, as I walked over to the alarm control center, Jacob opened the backdoor. The loudest sound I have ever heard began blaring my eardrums. I ran into the living room to find Jacob crying holding the empty cup that held the lizard. He apologized and I had to yell over the sound to him that it was ok, which I am sure is so not reassuring. “IT’S FINE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE SORRY FOR!!!” I searched the numbers given to me and not one of them was any name I knew, the parents had actually not left their number with me, and for “safety” reasons they didn’t leave the code to the alarm either. I checked on Jackson, he was sleeping (like a baby) and there was no blaring noise at all in his room. I ran back into the living room, with the block long emergency number list and yelled “WHAT IS YOUR AUNT’S NAME?”
“YES!”
“YES, WHAT?”
“I HAVE AN AUNT!”
“GREAT, WHAT’S HER NAME.”
“AUNTIE.” Of course right?
The alarm shut off after a while. Jackson and I sat down in front of the TV while I explained to him that the cops would be there shortly to check on us. When night fell, Jackson and I watched as a flash light began swinging back and forth across the backyard. A man’s body hurtled over the fence and I thought to myself there is no way this guy could be breaking in right now. The man ran up to the window, a fully uniformed cop with a gun in its holster on his side. “ARE YOU THE BABYSITTER?” He yelled through the window.
“Yes.” I yelled back.
“Are you all ok?” He looked at Jackson, who looked like he was shitting his pants.
The entire time we talked I wondered how in the world this cop didn’t think we were in danger (now I think the parents were notified and they shut it off somehow but then I was like WTF is going on). They never called me again.
Anne and Leah were about two years apart, Leah was oldest and a total brat. The first time I watched the girls she cried and screamed about wanting her old babysitter. So that sucked. Later that same day we were playing a game when she pointed at me and said “What is all over your face?”
I had zits like crazy back then, and her parents were GORGEOUS so I couldn’t expect her to understand. “Pimples.” I said.
“Gross. I won’t get them.” She said confidently.
“I am pretty sure you will.” I smiled at her, but I wanted to scream.
Over the course of a year I had grown to really like the girls, and they me. We played all kinds of games; one in particular was a stupid game where we threw ice into the pool. The pool didn’t have a gate around it so we were free to get as close as we wanted, but my rule was we had to stand around the perimeter in the grass. One day Leah decided to challenge that rule, she walked out onto the diving board (in the middle of winter), and I yelled to her to get back. She looked at me with a crooked smile and faked that she had fallen into the pool; it was some really bad acting on her part. I ran over to her, telling Anne to sit down in the grass until I got back, which she did. Leah (a very experienced swimmer) popped her head out of the water and said “You are going to be in so much trouble when my parents get home.”
So I guess she didn’t like me as much as I thought she did. We went inside in silence; the girls sat and watched TV until their parents got home… and I was fired.
Just some of the many reasons why babysitting is not for me.