Yesterday and today I had the immense pleasure of watching four boys, three of whom are brothers. The boys were ages ten, nine, six and three. And they were boys. Four of them.
The nine-year-old is my neighbour; I’ve known him since he was three. The other boys I had never met until yesterday, which as anyone who has babysat before can tell you, makes for an interesting time given that many children have authority issues with People Who Are Not Their Parents, and sometimes even with People Who Are Their Parents. (*cough*myadorableboyfriendasachild*cough* So I’m told) So, I was obviously a little anxious going into this.
It understandably took awhile for the three-year-old to adjust to my presence. It took him much longer to acknowledge my presence. His brothers weren’t at all phased by me being there, and in fact were delighted with me being there once the words, “Would you guys like to play outside?” fell forth from my lips. In case you were wondering, the way to a young boy’s heart is through a door and out on a playground. The boys were immensely enjoying themselves playing and having Mulch Wars, the game of kings. (Don’t criticise me; the mulch was extremely soft and it was a game that all the boys could have fun participating in. I mean, come on, I had an age span of 3-10.) I had fun watching them and playing with them. Or rather, I did until a lady there asked me if all four were mine. No, who am I kidding? That was fun, too. For once someone thought I was older than 15! She told me that she had wondered because I was so good with them. Aaaand that would be about the time that the ten-year-old yelled to tell me that the six-year-old was hurt. (Well, OF COURSE it was.) My first thought was that he slipped because the playground was all metal and it had rained earlier, so everything was slightly wet. That, followed by, “What was I thinking bringing them out here in the first place? Oh, right, I WASN’T.” But, as it turned out, my neighbour had simply kicked the six-year-old in the face (the eye, no less) trying to keep him from climbing up the slide. (Oh, that’s so much better. I thought so!) The six-year-old was really brave, though. He didn’t cry at all. I brought them all inside after making my neighbour apologise and I got the six-year-old ice for his eye.
Ok, ok, that sounds disastrous. But it wasn’t! They all had fun, and the boys really were quite sweet, especially to the three-year-old. They held his hand while they helped him climb up and down and were really very attentive. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
Today was much the same, save for no face-kicking and no Mountain Dew. (Did I mention that there was Mountain Dew? No? I must still be traumatised. Because there was. Their moms let them have Mountain Dew. A three-year-old drinking Mountain Dew is highly ill-advised. Apparently they didn’t go to bed last night until midnight. Some wonder.) Uh, anyway. Today was about the same, just longer, really. It also rained more. It began pouring while we were on the playground and, like the cruel, hateful dictator that I am, I forced them to go inside. Foooorced. Beating them senseless would have been more welcome than not letting them climb on very wet bars because HONESTLY!, they know what they’re doing and they were perfectly safe! Then they got a little antsy back inside and decided to take their frustration towards me cooping them up inside out on each other, in the physical sense. This resorted in one of the boys being placed in timeout.
Thankfully, God heard my prayers (and theirs) and decided to let up the raining. The sun shone and all were happy because we could go outside again! Rejoice! Except we had to wait for someone’s timeout to finish before going outside. See what happens when you misbehave? You suffer and, consequently, so does everyone else, because now everyone has to wait 6 minutes and 47 seconds for your timeout to end before everyone’s allowed to go outside. (I hadn’t intended for that to happen, but oh well.) Now 6 minutes and 41 seconds. Oh, Time, how slowly you move.
Then there were popsicles — red, purple and orange ones. And Sticky Hands, which truly does deserve to be capitalised. The Washing of Hands followed (and, in the case of the three-year-old, The Feet). Holy moly, Corleone, did it come next. The older two went off on their own to play after that because they needed some space and some time to do adolescent boy things, while the youngest painted with the moms (He even used a paintbrush! He was a very sophisticated three-year-old.) and I hung out with the six-year-old who was, in case you were wondering, an absolute delight.
Truth be told, the entire time I spent with these boys was an absolute delight. They behaved much better than I had expected and were at least thrice as fun than that. I have kind of low self-esteem, so the fact that I could please both moms and take care of FOUR BOYS, three of whom I hadn’t met before yesterday, and return them all in one piece is decidedly quite an accomplishment, and a confidence booster at that.
