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Babysitting Adventures: Final Installment
This is the last babysitting adventure story you will all be privledged to read, as my job ib over as of 45 minutes ago. Yessssss.
Today was a very hot day as I'm sure you all noticed, so my 2 darling little babysittees were dying and wanted to go to their pool club. I said yes, and then it was decided that two of the neighborhood boys would come too. My sister was roped into coming at this point, as I could not manage that alone. First major obstacle: packing up 4 boys under the age of 6 to go swimming. Then came the ride; I forgot how enticing the back seat in a station wagon is when you're 5 years old. So after that was settled, with only a few tears shed, we were on our way.
We got to the pool, and another argument ensued: would we eat lunch or go swimming first? Eating lunch won with a 3-1 vote, and this resulted in our lone would-be-swimmer bursting into tears. Nonetheless we managed to eat 4 hotdogs and an enormous amount of ketchup, most of which ended up on the boys.
Then the obstacle of swimming. One child refuses to wear his bubble...it was strapped on him with a few complaints but nothing major. Second child..is a bit on the chubby side. Ok no lie he's fat. He had a bubble suit (you know..the onsies?). So I put his arms into it, and try to do up the zipper. To no avail. My sister was helping me at this point. Picture this: my sister has her arms around the kid, trying to hold the two sides of the bubble suit close so I could sip it. I'm in front of him, struggling to get the zipper up. We're both encouraging him to suck his stomach in. After a long battle, he is zipped up, very snugly..so snug in fact that we asked him if he could breath. He said he could, so it was all good.
And next...the actual getting in the water. The two neighborhood boys were good swimmers. Actually they were amazing in comparision to my bubble laden babysittees. The older boy has a phobia of putting his head under water, which resulted in lots of "rescuing" him. The younger (and chubbier) boy was a whole other issue. Bubble suits are supposed to make you float, right? That's what my sister and I thought...so we set him in the water, and whoooosh down he goes. We picked him up, set him very gently in the water again, and yet again he sunk. Our poor little child was so overweight that his floatie could not keep him floating.
So then youngest child decides to throw a fit. A big one. A super-duper-out-of-contro- wicked-embarrasing-want-to-strangle-him fit. We were on the pool deck, and he just started up, as usual for no reason. I tried to console him, and after receiving several dirty glares over the course of ten minutes, I took him to the parking lot. He cried and cried and cried. To the point that he wet his pants. Then I dragged him into the bathroom and forced him to take a shower. It is not fun to wrestle an overweight child in the shower. This cleansing resulted in him becoming close to hysteria. So it was out to the parking lot again. This time his screaming attracted the attention of one of the very nice looking male lifeguards, who came over to help me. I was mortified of having this miserable uncontrollable child...so the lifeguard bends down and says "What's wrong little guy?" At which point the child lets out a bloodcurling, ear piercing scream. He screamed so loud that every limb on his body was shaking. The lifeguard got up, said "Ummm good luck" and walked away.
So after 45 he finally stops crying and we take him back to the pool. Then we had a semi-normal rest of the afternoon, and made it home, all living.
Thank God it's my last day.