Adventures in Babysitting

I've heard some say that you can't babysit your own kids. To them I might say, "That's weird ,because I'm babysitting them right now." I included 'might' in that sentence to indicate that's what I would be saying if I had some serious head trauma where the part of the brain that balances the acceptable use of sarcasm was crushed. Normally I would never say such inflammatory things. Out loud. I'll stop.

You're probably wondering if my weekend included anything to do with going to the city with the kids to pick up my friend who is stranded at a questionable bus station, only to get a flat tire which might have lead us to getting into a stolen car and mistakenly picking up incriminating documents that the car thieves want back, which might have put one of the kids at the top of the building only to be saved, but not before seeing that dirt bag boyfriend with another girl on our anniversary! No, that didn't happen. You're thinking of the classic "Adventures in Babysitting" starring the timeless Elizabeth Shue. I may or may not have watched it to get my references right.

Anywho, I had a fun-filled weekend planned to distract the kids from the fact that their mom was gone. It temporarily worked, but in the process part of me may have died. On Saturday night I took Grace and Cooper to the Aggie game. Taking a one and five-year old to a basketball game by myself you ask? Genius you say? I actually had help from family and great friends but there were parts that I couldn't pawn off. One would be carrying popcorn, a slushie and a one year old (who has been rightly compared to a bag of redi-mix concrete) down the stairs to our seats. It might have worked if my arms didn't start cramping. I'm blaming it on the fact that I wasn't hydrated well enough and not the possibility that I can't carry an infant for more than 20 feet before my arms go numb. In any case we made it to our seats without dropping anything or anyone, but not before I cried out in pain. Thankfully there were only strangers there at that point- who, by the way, failed to make eye contact for the rest of the evening.

There was empty seat next to me and that's where Cooper set up shop. The picture above is him standing next to me in his space checking out the game. The first half he was pretty good, but as the game went on things got more desperate. He may have chewed up a donut, spit it out on the floor, then picked it up and ate it. He may have sneezed a mouth-full of popcorn on the folks beside us (this is where the no eye contact thing came in handy). He may have gotten really upset after I may have yelled something particularly loud at an upsetting moment. He wasn't the only challenge. It's hard to explain logically to a five year old what would justify yelling crazy things at complete strangers that are 200 feet away. It's hard, but I'm getting good at it. There was a LOT of justifying during that Aggie loss.

We stayed over at my family's house and the kids were tired enough after the game to go right to sleep. Most of the time having black-out shades in the kid's rooms works to our advantage at home. I didn't consider how it would affect their sleep when we're somewhere without them. Normally, it would be fine. That night of course the moon was almost full with no clouds. I slept in the same room as Cooper and at 1 am I heard Cooper start moving around. I woke up to see the room very illuminated by the moon. Quickly I started building a throw-pillow barrier to block Cooper's line of site to the bed but was too late. He spotted me and thought that it was not only morning, but hide and seek time. Lot's of 'Daddy? Daddy!' Cute at 1 pm. Something that only could be described in uncouth language at 1 am. So I army-crawled out of that room and had Grace scoot over in her room. That went well until 2 am when she gave me a steady diet of donkey kicks to my ribs. Then at three she was convinced that the sun was coming up. Then at four. And so on. At five I woke up standing in the kitchen where I was about to sleep-slam my crotch in the dishwasher door. My subconscience had obviously taken the initiative to assure I didn't have any more children. Obviously it's getting late at this point because I posting crazy things.

In any case I've learned a few things and made some great memories with the kids. Mostly that Elizabeth Shue can have the adventures. I'm staying home next time Cami goes.