Adventures in Babysitting

The title of the blog probably dates me a little bit....remember the movie circa 1980?
My adventure wasn't quite like Elisabeth Shue's, but I did have a couple of unbelievable "mishaps" (let's just call them). I just had to share! This may or may not break your decision to ever let me watch your children unsupervised. :)

My cousin, Carrie, needed childcare coverage this past Monday while her babysitter, Beth, was on vacation. I gladly obliged! Gavin loves playing with his cousins. How hard could it be to watch 3 children under the age of 2.5? Carrie dropped of the kids around 7:30ish. She came well prepared.....bouncy, swing, lots of diapers, change of clothes, bottles, formula and written instructions for Baby Chase. I was ready!

The kids started playing right away. Gavin was so excited to have company. Boy does he LOVE babies! What child doesn't, right? Both he and Piper were so concerned about Baby Chase all day. They would get into his face, want to feed him his bottle, check on him while he slept. Poor little guy, he just took it all in stride. He is the best little thing! The morning "mishap",however, occurred after Chase finished his first bottle. Carrie warned me of his potent poo - comparing it to "stinky, gross, green sludge". (Great visual, eh?) Chase drank all his bottle, burped, and dropped #2 off in the diaper. Obviously, it was time to change my first baby diaper of the day. The kids were all excited to watch me change Chasey. (Are all kids infatuated with poo or just the ones in our family?) To make this long story short, as I wiped the little guy down, he starts pooping again! I quickly try and keep it all in the diaper, but it just keeps coming! We are talking about a large quantity of gross, green, stinky sludge! The toddlers are shouting "more poopy, more poopy comin' out". ( Thanks so much for the update kids.) I was in too much shock to be utterly grossed out. Serves me right to interrupt the lil' guy before he was finished. Holy Cow! You can bet I didn't make that mistake the rest of the day. Despite our diaper incident, he seriously was the easiest baby. When he wasn't smiling, or eating, (or pooping), he was sleeping. How cute is he?

By noon, all the kids were fed and all were down for a nap (at the same time may I add). I was feeling pretty confident at this point that this day was going much smoother than I had anticipated. Gavin woke up from his nap first, then Piper, then Chase. Chase was ready for his bottle and the kids were ready to play. Piper and Gavin started jumping on the bed. In the back of my mind, I thought, "probably shouldn't be letting them do this", but they were having so much fun and just LAUGHING and LAUGHING. It was making me smile, until CRACK......they jumped and knocked skulls. The back of Piper's head hits Gavin's forehead. Keep in mind this child already has a knot on his forehead that hasn't healed completely since APRIL! Dr. seems to think it will eventually go down, but that's another story. So Gavin is screaming and his bump is visible at this point. I have to put the baby down to go get some ice for Gavin's head. Chase, is not a fan of one messing with his food! He starts screaming immediately because I took his bottle away. Who could blame him? Piper doesn't really seemed phased by all the screaming, and once we got the icepack situated I could give poor Chase back his bottle. Whew!

Once Chase went down again for his next nap of the day I decided to take the kids outside and play. It was a beautiful day! I put on their swim suits, lathered on the sunscreen and out we went.

After they were finished playing in the pool, they were climbing on our cornhole set that was sitting outside. Again, I had that little voice in the back of my head saying " not the best idea, Meghan"......they were walking on them and throwing their hands up shouting, "TA DAAAAA!!" Then in slow motion, I see Piper take a step and her foot goes thru the cornhole hole and she falls backwards and hits the back of her head on the other cornhole board. She cried briefly, but then honestly acted fine. My first thought was. "Wow, she's tough!" Then I thought to myself that I definitely had an angel watching over us. Then I looked at her head.....she had a huge lump on the back of her head with a little tiny line that barely broke the skin. I thought I was going to throw up. Its bad enough when your own child gets hurt, but someone else's? Round 2 with the icepack! Both kids came immediately inside and I turned on Blue's Clues so Piper would sit and let me hold the ice pack on her sweet little head. I prayed, "Lord, please don't let anything else happen to these kids today!" Once the swelling went down we went back outside for popsicles and I, of course, called Carrie. She didn't leave work to pick up her children, so that made me feel good. The toddlers, however, were not climbing or doing anything that could potentially constitute an accident for the rest of the day!
As the day was winding down to an end, the kids were spinning around in circles and falling to the ground laughing. I tell Gavin, "ok, one more time." He spins, is dizzy (of course), stumbles, then falls right into the corner of the coffee table! Cracks the SIDE of his head this time. He screamed bloody murder. I knew he was hurt. Again, that feeling of regurgitation overwhelmed me. Are you kidding me? Did he seriously just hit his head AGAIN!? Out came the icepack for a 3rd time. An immediate purple goose egg formed on the side of his head. I was in disbelief.

We did have lots of fun, regardless of the head injuries. Piper and Gavin played really well together (which is a sucess in itself). Sharing at 2 years old is a constant struggle. They laughed a lot and are both saying some pretty funny things. They played hide-and-seek and did somersaults. Both events should have required video footage - hilarious! I hope Carrie isn't scared to let me watch her children again. I promise these were all freak things, but definitely made me aware of how easily accidents can happen. I should have been more careful. Both of the toddlers had bruises all up and down their legs (all prior injuries, not from the day spent with me). They are a couple of tough cookies! I did come to the conclusion, though, that these children need helmets at all times.

Here are some other happy pictures taken throughout the day.

Piper showing off her hair that she let me braid!

I told her she would look just like a princess! She does don't you think?

Snack time.....cheeeeeeese!

I just thought he looked so cute here. (I am probably a little biased.)