Our Babysitting Tales

My brother and sister-in-law, Carlos and Salley, were in town this weekend, and Ben and I babysat their three girls while they went to a wedding. Their girls are Charlie (6), Sage (4) and Katie (2). Let me give you some of the highlights. (Get comfortable, I have a lot to say.)

The first thing the girls do is hunt down the kitty cats, Calvin & Hobbes, who are scared from all the noise and hiding under the bed (where they remained until around 9:00 pm). In a valiant effort to get the kitties to come out from the bed, the girls take all of the cat toys and make a trail leading from the bed to the cat tower. Because, you know, apparently this trick has somehow, maybe, possibly worked in the past for them?! Of course, it didn't work, but I gotta give the girls an A for effort, because they tried their hardest - over and over and over again.

Next, it's time to watch a movie. I foolishly had this thought in my head that Ben and I and the girls would all sit down and watch a movie together. Well, I can tell you that they brought about 15 movies with them, 9 of which were in the dvd player at some point in time. However, the longest anyone sat down to watch a movie was a whopping 10 minutes. Huh? What is that about?

Here is Sage (L) and Charlie (R) in Braedyn's crib. I walk in to Braedyn's room to check on the girls. Sage is inside the crib and Charlie is standing on the floor.

Me: Ummm, how did Sage get in the crib?
Char: (beaming with pride) I helped her get in there.
Me: Well, Sage isn't aloud in the crib, it's too dangerous climbing in and out.
Char: No it's not, it's really easy. Watch, I'll show you.

And Charlie then proceeds to climb up on the crib rail, throw one leg over, then throws the rest of her body over, sits up and says excitedly "See, that's how you do it." Nice, huh?

At one point, the girls were watching Ben swim in the pool. For entertainment, they would shout out different tricks they wanted Ben to do while he was swimming. One trick was to swim under water (this is a trick?). So Ben did that and they all squealed with delight. Charlie says to me "Wow, Uncle Ben is a really good swimmer. Do you think he'll want to be a lifeguard when he grows up?"

Later on, Charlie wanted to eat some vanilla wafers. She brings out the cookie bag and says:

Char: Can I have some of these cookies?
Me: Would your Mommy let you eat them?
Char: (looking at me with those puppy dog brown eyes) Maybe not.
Me: Well, you better not eat them yet, let's wait until Mommy gets home and we'll ask her then.
Char: Okay. (walks away with her pouty face on)

......... THEN, approximately 90 seconds later, Charlie comes running back up to me with the bag of cookies.

Char: I just remembered, Mommy DOES let me eat these. She wouldn't care AT ALL.
Me: (going on hour 4 at this point) Well hell, in that case, knock yourself out kid!!

Carlos called to say they were on the way home, and asked if Katie ate dinner. I was like "Huh? Dinner? Well, she's currently eating a snack-pack of Cheeze It's, and earlier she had a snack-pack of Fudge Striped Cookies." I mean, hey - the kids are all still alive and accounted for, what more can he ask for? Seriously.

So, later that night after the kids went to sleep (if you can call it that), we all sat down to enjoy some wine... lots of wine. I was completely exhausted, but the wine had never tasted so good! The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed, walked past the kitchen - then backed up to do a double-take. There, on the counter of the kitchen was the evidence - not one, not two - but rather 6 empty bottles of wine! And the worst part of it all, Ben doesn't drink wine, all that damage was done by me, Carlos and Salley! Wow, I was sooo proud of my tolerance level. Who knew kids could push you to achieve such a goal?!

We all did have a really good time, and I have more to write about since we celebrated my nephew's (Montana) third birthday on Sunday. But I'm so exhausted from reliving Saturday, that I'll have to post that story later.