Babysitting Memories...

Lately I’ve been reminiscing about all the funny, scary, horrific and bizarre babysitting jobs I’ve had over the years. I started babysitting when I was 12 and was making 5 dollars an hour for watching 5 kids. And I thought that was good money. Oh how things have changed. Anyway I thought it would be fun to post a couple of my most memorable babysitting jobs/experience. So here they are!

Once when I was probably about 14 my friend Kalie and I were babysitting for a family with four kids. By 10 the kids were asleep and we were watching Hope Floats downstairs. (Just some background…the house is kind of creepy in that the back of the house is covered in large open windows. Behind their house is a little forest with lots of trees and not really any light. At night it was incredibly creepy because you couldn’t see out the windows past the deck, it was just darkness.) So with that setting the stage, Kalie and I started to hear sounds. They sounded like footsteps upstairs. We were sure all the kids were asleep and the sounds weren’t little kid sounds. It sounded like there was a person walking around upstairs. Kalie started to get really freaked out. She ran around the corner and got into the closet in the office area. I was trying to convince her that it would be ok, but I was starting to freak out as well. She wanted me to call 911 because she was absolutely sure that there was someone upstairs who was going to kill us or something. Instead I called my Mommy. My Mom was probably really frustrated with me. My Mom told me that she would come over with the dog and check it out, but we would have to come up and open the door for her. The stairs came right up to the entry, but still we were sure that there was a murderer waiting for us up there. So like reasonable people we decided we needed to arm ourselves against whatever was up there. Kalie and I looked around but all that we could really find was calking guns. So Kalie and I armed with calking guns headed for the stairs. We were both scared out of our minds! I remember thinking that we were going to run into someone at the top of the stairs and somehow we thought that us yielding those calking guns would be enough to scare off any intruder. Well my Mom came, the dog smelt around and nothing. It must have been the trees or something blowing against the house. I just don’t think I’ll ever get the picture of Kalie and I climbing up the stairs with calking guns raised sure that were marching to our death. Kalie never did come babysitting with me again…

Another funny (well it wasn’t funny then, but it is now…) experience I remember is from when I was probably only 12. I was watching these two little girls who were about 4 and 6. They were absolute demons! They would never listen to me, always argued with me and got into trouble every time I turned around. I have a distinct memory of trying to get them to stop jumping on their parent’s bed. They were poking an umbrella at me and chanting together “We love you ugly Mrs. Hanagan!”. For goodness sake I was only 12! I had no idea what to do with these little girls! I babysat a couple days a week from about 6:30 in the morning until around 3 in the afternoon all summer long. Every day when the Mom would come home she wouldn’t even ask how the kids had been. I think she could tell by just looking at me that it had been a long day. That was probably the worst job I ever had.

Another bizarre job was for a Jewish family. They were very strange. It was a single Mom, her 8 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. The family called the daughter Boobah when her real name was Tallah. It just felt wrong to call her Boobah. They had a 3 story house but only lived in the middle floor and had their mattress out in the main living area. It was just really uncomfortable and bizarre. Once I was over there for their opening of the Sabbath rituals, and I felt so out of place. They had different sets of dishes for meat and milk products. I remember being worried that I would use the wrong dishes and get in trouble for it. The funniest thing to me was that one time the mom brought home finger puppets of the 10 plagues for her kids to play with. All the nasty plagues were somehow turned into a child’s play thing. Who would give their kids finger puppets with dead cows, locust, and people with boils on it? Not me!

There was one family which I babysat for years. There were two older kids but mostly I watched the younger two while their mom taught piano lessons. One time the little girl about 3 years old asked me if I had a peanuts. I couldn’t really understand her and didn’t know what she wanted. She kept asking and eventually peanuts came closer and closer to sounding like penis. Then she asked if she could see it. It was hilarious! I had no idea what to say to the girl. I told her that I didn’t have one. Her mom overheard this conversation and swept in to explain that I was a girl so I had girl parts like her, not boy parts. Also she had to explain that you can’t ask to see other people’s privates. I just love how open kids are. They have questions, so they ask them. Simple as that. The little boy in that same family just asked me last week when I got back from Utah when I was going to be a mommy. I told him that I would have to be married first that I wasn’t even dating anyone, so I probably wouldn’t be getting married for awhile. He then proceeded to tell me that his mom told him that between 20 and 21 was a good age to get married. He asked how old I was, then said that I had a year or two to get married. I’m glad he’s ok with the fact that I’m not married.

Well that’s all I can think of right now…

Funny note-I’m house-sitting later this month for the same family as mentioned in my previous blog. I think I’ll just tell them that if the power goes out, I’m out!