What Babysitting Has Taught Me

Currently I babysit two very active boys...and it's a lot of work. I know I have no right to complain since I only babysit them 2 hours a day, 3 days a week, but I get a months worth of exercise after watching them for one day. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but it really does feel like it.

So, I'm the youngest in my family and I was a kid when my younger cousins were babies, meaning I was and pretty much still am inexperienced with taking care of kids. Most of what I've learned babysitting is the basics of how to deal with a little human being and I learned it through trial and error, which is basically how you learn everything in life.

The thing is though, every second I spend with them is valuable and educational to me. I've been able to get slightly better with understanding kid talk. I say only slightly because once the youngest was trying to tell me he wanted a banana and it took me a good minute to understand the word banana.

I've also gotten better at being patient...okay not really, but I've learned to control my anger. Talia often gets texts from me when I'm babysitting and I'm annoyed with the kids. One time I was trying to put the youngest's (he's 4) shorts on because he had went potty earlier and decided not to get dressed after it. I walked up to him and he was about to put it on when he decided to dart away and run in their box fort. So I ended up walking to a different room because I wasn't wanting to deal with that that day. He came to find me and ran away a couple times, but I finally got him to stand still. But just as he was about to put his foot through the hole, he screams at the top of his lungs right in my face...was it necessary, apparently. So long story short, it took around 10 minutes to get him dressed, which I now know is basically standard when getting a kid dressed.

I've also learned how random kids can be. In the summer, the oldest who is 8 asked me if he could bring the outside hose into the house and fill the bathtub with it...like who would even think about doing that?!?! As I gave him a disapproving look he added "we won't tell mama". I mean if anything you think about doing has to have a "don't tell mom" attached, it's not a good idea.

I've also learned how hard it is to enforce rules, especially since I'm only with them for 2 hours and I'm a lazy human being. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like it is extremely hard to put someone else's kid in time out even though they put me in charge of their kid, I just feel I'm not in the right place to do that. Anyone else feel that way?

But no matter how hard it is to take care of these kids, it's really heartwarming when I see them outside of babysitting (usually at church) and they still want to hang out with me. It makes me feel like I'm not just a cruel, no fun babysitter.

What I learned the most though is how much work kids are. Seriously, you have to teach another human being how to act to grow into independent people and everything you do has an effect on how they turn out. Like "don't whine", "no screaming", "say please", and "just because you say please doesn't mean you'll get what you want". I wish I could just say "work it out yourself", but that would make me a bad adult so...

But everything I've gone through with these kids is 100 percent worth it. The crying and the screaming to the laughs and the smiles. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

H