So This Is What A Third Child Could Have Been Like...

I've talked before about the babysitting co-op my neighborhood has and how it's saved me more than once. It's such a great group of women, and it eases my mind when I need to do something sans children. I always know I have someone great who can watch the wee ones. For free.

Ahhhhhhh.

Most of the kids in the co-op are the wee ones' age or older. As with all groups, it's had its ebbs and flows. A couple of the older members with kids who are now in middle school have recently left the co-op and new members with younger children have joined.

That brings us to tonight. Previously, the children we've watched have been more like playdates than anything else. This time, we had a younger child with us. Sage (not her real name) is almost two years old, and she's cute as can be.

The wee ones haven't spent a ton of time around children that young, and before she arrived, I gave them a pep talk. She likely wouldn't listen to them. She might not play with toys they way they'd want her to. She might frustrate them. They nodded and agreed, but I wasn't sure how much of it had sunk in.

Apparently we need to do this babysitting thing more often. The wee ones had a blast, and Mister Man asked twice - twice - when he could babysit again because he loved it so much. When Sage arrived, the wee ones were in the basement uncharacteristically arguing over toys. I prepared myself for a long two hours.

Or not.

When it was time for dinner, they helped gather Sage and brought her to the kitchen. Little Miss picked up Sage (who I think may weigh more than Little Miss) and put her in her booster seat and then pushed in her chair. At the conclusion of dinner, the wee ones helped her clear her place before leading her into the bathroom to wash her hands and face.

Yes, that is Mister Man actually - and very gently - washing Sage's face.

We then headed upstairs to play. When Sage approached me with an "uh-oh" and a sock dangling from her hand, Mister Man asked if he could put it back on for her. I was impressed at how patient he was. See that huge pile of trains? Mister Man went digging into his collection of toys that he doesn't play with anymore that he thought she would like and then brought all of them for her to play with.

After that, Mister Man went in search of "age appropriate" books that he read to Sage while we waited for her Daddy to arrive to pick her up. He let her choose which book to do first and made room on his bed for her, displacing his carefully arranged animals and pillows so that she could sit comfortably.

Why do I have a feeling it wouldn't be all sunshine and roses if I actually did have a third child, though?



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Current Giveaways:

Wendy's gift card here
$40 gift card to 1-800-Flowers.com here
Two Aquaphor Wonder Sets here

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all who are celebrating (and for those who aren't, just enjoy the pictures).

I have a babysitting co-op in my neighborhood that rocks. We help each other out on a regular basis - for example both this coming and this past Wednesday when I need someone to get Little Miss off her bus. With over twenty women together, we can always find someone who is available to watch our children in exchange for hours.

It's more than just the babysitting though. Our monthly meetings are a great social outlet and a wonderful source of information about upcoming events, the schools, and more. We have periodic ladies nights to just get away. And we do holiday events, including an Easter Egg hunt that has become quite the tradition.

It starts off with an Easter Egg hunt, which they kindly hold off on starting until the four of us who attend the Catholic school that gets out later can make it to the designated house. Each of us provides stuffed eggs, and the kids are separated by age to go in search of their requisite number of eggs.

Note that I have no pictures of this. Although I recharged my camera before the event and put the battery back in, I apparently neglected to put the camera actually into my purse. Nice babysitting people lent me their camera, however.

We also have a visit from the Easter Bunny, who comes to visit all the children and is available for pictures. Usually the Easter Bunny is fairly stationary and put in a picturesque area, but this year he was mobile.

This may also be the last year we have the Easter Bunny. As disappointing as it was, I witnessed several of the older (and I'm talking early middle school age) children harrassing the bunny - pulling on his gloves, yanking his watch chain, pulling on his pockets trying to rip them off his jacket, lifting up his waist, and the like. I chastised them, and they looked suitably ashamed for being disrespectful to the bunny, but I caught them (and others) at it later, and I know other moms did, too. It's a shame.

This isn't all, however. After the Easter Egg hunt is over, there are cookies to decorate. Dozens and dozens of cookies are made, frosting and sugars and decorations are provided, and the kids get to go to town making and eating their creations. You'll notice no pictures of Little Miss here, as she was being Miss Crabby McCrabbypants and not listening and was taken home by my husband after the Easter Egg hunt portion.

The host for the past two years has added yet another bit of entertainment. She prints out all sorts of Easter coloring pages, and the children are then invited to color them for a contest. This isn't your typical contest, however, where the one artistic child wins every single year. Instead, all the pictures are hung up for their due admiration while the kids go run and play for awhile. Eventually, they are taken down, shuffled, and three random winners are drawn.

Mister Man didn't win, and he was disappointed, but he was thrilled that he was able to help other kids find eggs after he'd found his dozen. In fact, as he was helping one boy find thirteen of his eighteen eggs, one of the eggs he found for that boy had a special "E" label inside that meant the boy received a special prize. Mister Man couldn't have been prouder that he helped than if he'd won himself.

And really? Isn't that what Easter is all about? Helping others, sharing and celebrating as a community, and recognizing that we're all in this together trying to make the world a better place?

Happy Easter!

Good Ideas Gone Bad

A reminder for you all, I've got a trio of giveaways going on over at my review site right now -- consider it some early Christmas shopping, either for yourself or someone else! 

My four pack of movie tickets and free cereal ends tomorrow and so far has only seven entries (what do you not like going to the movies?) Enter here.

Do you shop at the LOFT? $200 awaits you here.

Are you more of a cash kind of person? Enter for a $200 Visa gift card here.

***

Stop me when you figure out where I went wrong today.

I agreed to watch a friends two sons this afternoon for a couple hours after church today (no, this is a good thing), beginning at noon.

It turns out that the wee ones had Christmas pageant practice today after church. Church ends at 11:30 or so. The practice I found out was going to be "about forty-five minutes or so." I did not bring food for them to eat lunch. (Sadly, this is not where I went wrong either.)

At ten to twelve, my friend called to confirm that we were still at church and dropped off her boys. I was expecting ten more minutes of pageant practice, and they can be entertained for that long, surely. For ten minutes? No problem. Unfortunately, it was almost forty more minutes of practice. And the wee ones still hadn't eaten lunch. (I'm starting to have a few regrets, but this isn't where I went wrong.)

When we got to our house at 1:45, I discovered that the two boys had eaten lunch already, so they just wanted to play. You can imagine how well lunch went over with Mister Man and Little Miss while their friends are calling to them and trying to get them to play. Little Miss sat right down and ate something, and I contented myself with Mister Man eating two bites of a sandwich and drinking his milk. Nope, still not where I went wrong.

Yesterday, I started baking Christmas cookies. I have to bring in cookies to Mister Man's school twice next week, and I volunteered to be the "nice" mom bringing in not only the nut free cookies (required) but also the egg free (an allergy in Mister Man's class) and dairy free (an allergy in the school in general) cookies. Those cookies were quickly and easily made yesterday, but by the time I finished those, the wee one and I were done baking for the day. The sugar cookie dough sitting in the fridge was going to stay there overnight.

So I decided that today would be a good day to finish the cookies and that the boys could help me. I rolled out the dough, and I showed them the selection of cookie cutters. Surprisingly, this wasn't too painful.

One of the boys asked if he could have a taste of the dough. I agreed and gave him a small sliver. I then spent the next hour and a half chasing after him and making him put pieces of dough down. This was the beginning of the end.

Since they were cut out sugar cookies, I figured we had to decorate them. I was envisioning using my sugar crystals of various colors with the stocking being sprinkled gently with red for the bottom and left clean on top. The snowflake would be perfect sprinkled in blue, while the star would look great in red -- and so on.

Apparently it's been awhile since I've decorated with children. The pile of yellow sugar on one cookie wasn't a huge issue, as I easily spread it around and calmly explained that you couldn't use that much sugar on a single cookie.

When they argued over the sugar and grabbed at the sugar the others had, smashing an elbow into a couple cookies along the way, I quickly devised a color sharing system -- at my call, they would each rotate the sprinkles to the right.

When Mister Man asked to use the new red sprinkles, I helped him open them. At that point, I turned around to do something -- stupidly, I'll admit. I heard the oh no! as I turned back around. Apparently the red sprinkles have very large holes in the top, and a pile of red sprinkles larger than the cookie now lay atop a poor snowman. I took a deep breath and quickly grabbed the still pouring sprinkle container then began trying to scrape up some of the teensy tiny grains of sugar. Muttering under my breath, I gave up.

The first tray done -- albeit over decorated -- I placed into the oven, and we started on the second tray. I placed the red sprinkles out of the way so no one would be tempted, and I contentedly monitored the over sugaring of the cookies. As the timer went off and I turned around to check the cookies in the oven, I really should have known better. One of the boys had opened the red container, and almost half the sprinkles in the bottle were now covering a reindeer and a bell. At least the boy had the good sense to right the bottle and stop pouring after the initial mishap.

I tried tilting the tray to better capture the excess sprinkles, which only worked minimally as both of the boys were putting their fingers in the sprinkles and gobbling the sugar as quickly as they could. My admonitions were met only with sheepish grins and more reaching. I checked the clock to see how long before I headed out for my Christmas party tonight (and by my, I mean me and other moms with no children present).

We continued decorating the cookies, and I continued fending off the boys from the stealing of dough and sugar. Somehow, I don't lose this battle when it's the wee ones, but these boys are more persistent. They also began begging to eat a cookie. I promised everyone could have a cookie once we got the second sheet out of the oven and they'd cooled somewhat (with Little Miss getting one of the strawberry thumbprint dairy free, egg free, nut free but surprisingly not taste free cookies we'd made yesterday).

As the cookies were ready, I placed a cookie for each child onto a plate and made sure they sat at the kitchen table to eat. I continued to work on rolling out the dough and finishing up the cookies. When I next looked up, the children had all left the table, and I can only pray that they washed -- or at least licked off -- their hands before going to play in the rooms with carpet and other light colored objects.

This is about when I realized that over sugared cookies have a bigger problem than just wasting the sugar. About three-quarters of the sugar that had been in the dispensers now lay strewn about not only the kitchen table but on the floor all around the table as far as the eye could see. I sighed and was mildly grateful that this wasn't summer and therefore no ants would smell the sugar that I'd missed, knowing it would take me several rounds of sweeping and mopping to capture all the errant grains.

They did all have fun, and I sent the boys on their merry way not long after with a big plate of the cookies they'd helped me make. I surveyed my kitchen and sighed.

Moral of the story? Making cookies with children isn't a bad thing. However, next time we're going with icing. Sugar is best left in the hands of experts.

And now? I have seven minutes before I need to be at a party that has only adults, some adult beverages and a basement full of delectable goodies. I'm feeling better already.