babysitting II

     The family I sat the most regularly for as a babysitter had two daughters and a toddler boy who definitely took a full baby-bottle of milk to his crib at bedtime. Instead of the Moose Club, like the other family I sat for, the parents of these three children were usually at Republican Club functions in our town. There are three main incidents I can remember about babysitting for this family.

     One early evening the dad picked me up in his car and on the way to the house explained that he had been eating watermelon that day with the kids. They saw him put salt on his piece of watermelon, so they wanted to do it too. Later in the afternoon, one of the girls got sick. She had been vomiting. Dad thought perhaps it was the salt on the watermelon that made her ill. They put her on the bed in their bedroom, which was on the main floor, and since she had not thrown up in a couple of hours – Mom and Dad thought she would be okay enough for them to go out. The parents not only left a phone number that night, but promised to call – and they did.

    Well, the sick child was surprisingly all right while I was there. She did not get off of her parents' bed, but neither were there any incidents of vomiting. At bedtime, I put the other two kids to bed in the room upstairs. After a while, I could hear the daughter upstairs complaining that she did not feel well. I told her that she was okay, she just thought she was sick because her sister was sick. Then she threw up – all over her bed.

     I changed the bedsheets and her clothes. Took everything to the basement – but I was afraid to use the washer – I'm still that way with other peoples' washing machines. So I left everything in a pile on top of the washer, and I called the parents. They were upset and apologetic – I told them I thought the daughter was fine at that point. So the parents said they would not come home immediately, but soon.

     After that the little boy got sick. The pile on the washer was even higher when Mom and Dad arrived. When I got to my own bed that night, I thought I was going to be sick – I told myself that I was okay, I just thought I was sick because I saw kids upchucking that night.         And I was right.

    One night when I arrived at the house, the Mom was very proud to tell me that her son no longer had his bottle – and I was not to give him one at bedtime! But when it was time to put the kids to bed, the little one fussed. I asked the girls what was wrong. And they said that their brother needed his gun! He had traded his baby bottle for a gun. It was with grave ambivalence that I handed this little boy his toy gun to caress in his crib that night.

     The last story about this family has to do with babysitting for a whole day – from 8 in the morning on a Saturday until 6 that night – 10 hours – that's $5! When my kids were little, babysitters cost $5 an hour – and in my day I had to put in an entire day to earn that much!         Well, the Mrs told me she did not have the money but would pay me later.

      They never called me again.

      They still owe me five dollars.

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