Angela's Adventures in Babysitting...

I have begun my journey into the crazy rabbit hole of childcare.  To help the hub and I supplement our income a bit before venturing down another crazy path of homeownership, I decided the best way for me to help out and still be home full time would be to take on another papoose.  As if this was only coincidence, I was telling our real estate agent how I am going to watch kids to boost our monetary flow.  Next words out of her mouth, "No way!  After this I'm going to meet someone about starting to watch my little one because I am losing a sitter! Would you want to take on my nine month old?"  The Lord is bigger than me or my plans, that's for sure!

Therefore, starting at 9:30 this morning, I began watching an adorable bright eyed little infant.  And Marcella was insanely jealous...more on that in a sec.

We started the morning with me picking up my little friend and heading to our weekly story time at our local library.  I loaded up my non-traditional twins in my double stroller and my two year old climbed on front.

 It went fairly uneventfully. I was a little smug at how easy that had been for me.  We entered the awesome controlled chaos.  Except it was pretty much me having most of it :) I have to give kudos and a huge thanks to a friend who helped me out tremendously.  Marcella right away saw my new tag-a-long as a threat for attention and with a push and a snarl let her know who owned this woman.  She was super clingy and right away I realized I needed more Mom's Nights Out and away from my mom-spoiled kids. I look over and Adelyn is stealing toys from smaller children and yelling, "No, no mine," to anyone who would listen, and my new cute one has a major blowout.  This is where my friend came in.  How would I have handled this without her assistance?  Not that I couldn't have managed but it would have been a lot less fun for everyone.  She took charge of my crew and I took stink butt to change her dipe.  Whew, crisis averted.  After I had had it with Adelyn bullying kids for their trucks, I decided it was time to head to the park.

Picnic time was definitely not relaxing but we all managed and I think our four little ones enjoyed it none the less.  However, my niners let me know it was time to head on back for nap time and I was starting to think that sounded pretty nice.  There was an eerie silence in the car as they all conked out.

Figuring out how to get three sleeping two and unders into the house was a feat that I don't think Houdini could have pulled off.  I guess I'm a little better than Houdini... I got the wee ones down without too much fuss and I thought Adelyn was as well.  Until...my monitor strangely stopped working.  And I hear a thud downstairs.  That little stinky monkey climbed the dresser, turned off the monitor and was sitting strangely calm in my glider with her heavy ceramic piggy bank!  I rush in and she says, "Hi, Mom.  I got out, ok?  No naps for me.  Get me out, ok?" Um...not ok.  Never did get her to take a nap.

They all woke up at the same time and happy.  The rest of the afternoon was wonderfully uneventful.  Little ones playing parallel to each other without any major meltdowns.  I can honestly say I'm not any more exhausted from a third as I was with my own two.  A little more forethought and adjustments to our routine and I got this.  Makes me think that maybe I should have another one... or as Jason's requesting, twin boys?  Glutton for punishment, I am :)