Xtreme Babysitting

I've probably mentioned here before that I have two sets of kids that clamor for my attention. The first set of course is my own, Shawn and Donnie. The others belong to my best friends R & S. Their 4 y/o sons nanme is Ali-joshua and yes they are muslim. Parental responsibilities are a little different in the arabic community. The women typically stay home with the kids and the families are usually very large. The little girl is 8 months but her eyes light up whenever I come into the room too. This is my second family in nearly every sense of the word. Of course you know with family there are always certain things that as an aunt/uncle what have you, you're just sorta expected to do.

Well the last two weeks have been a hailstorm of activity for me. My weekly schedule has looked something like this:

Sunday - spend time with Shawn and Donnie , shawn has all of his buddies over the house playing games and Donnie is running me around the neighborhood on his tricyle.

Monday - pick Joshua up from daycare so S can focus on her medical boards while R finishes work. It's tough for him to get to the daycare in time and I work just down the street.

Tuesday - my karaoke night though it has been pre-empted the last two weeks by the kids. My family as I call them may come over and Shawn's upstairs with the video games or working on math/reading lessons and Donnie's running me around the house.

Wednesday - Pick Joshua up from daycare again and if the boys are begging for me, tell him I have to go back to work or run errands so he's not too jealous. Yes, a 4 y/o can get jealous and will tell you he doesn't want to be your friend anymore cause you're leaving him lol. It's cute.

Thursday - another day I may get some free time but usually, wash rinse and repeat of tuesday. The kids, not the karoake, that's tuesday only.

Friday - toss up, depends on who calls first or cries the loudest. Split between my kids and Joshua and E.

Saturday - Time to try and clean the house cut the grass and somewhere in here I'll probably see either set of kids again.

So I've been quite busy lately but last night I promised to pick Joshua up from daycare and spend the night since he was so upset when I couldn't stay longer on monday. Of course I had Jennie calling me all day to ask if I was going to reconsider cause Donnie and Shawn (mostly donnie cause he's 3 and wants what he wants when he wants it) were wanting me. I told her I made a promise so I would have to see them tomorrow which is today. Well work ran a little long so I wasn't able to pick Joshua up from school which he himself reminded me several times when I finally did get to the house. I told him it was ok cause I'd brought a change of clothes and was spending the night. One thing to understand R & S would have me spend the night every night if I said ok. Not so much because of the kids but just because of the family thing.

However, the other thing about family....ever see the Airtran commercial where the kids show up on Mom and Dads doorsteps with the baby and say hi, drop the baby and run. Then the parents are left there going "They left us with the baby!!"

Yeah, that would be me last night. I got in the house and ten minutes later they were on their way out. It was kinda funny but they only go out maybe three or our times year so I didn't mind. I've been babysitting for them ever since Joshua was 6 months old so it was nothing new and S's mom was there. Only problem there is she's from Syria and doesn't speak any English and of course I dont speak any Arabic so we did a whole lot of pointing at stuff and kids and nodding or shaking our heads as we tried to get them both to goto sleep, eat and other stuff. It also showed proof that you can learn something from Reality TV. Joshua was a lot easier to put to bed before he could crawl and then before he could walk and then before he could talk. Now, he will debate the bedtime ritual until his dad gives him two options, one being the light turned off and the door closed and we just leave him in there. It's a little harder to discpline someone elses kid so last night when I got the inevitable debates on going to bed, I simply called dad and put him on speakerphone so he could talk to Joshua. That helped some but he still fussed a bit and all it took was the option to A lay down and close his eyes, or B have me call dad again to get him to finally settle in for the night. Of course, I always fall asleep trying to put him to sleep so I dont know who fell asleep first.