Ooooo...A Sick Day????!!!

Clearly not for me! :-(

But unfortunately June came down with a serious a** cold. Like...stay home from school. I was asked to come in around 11am today to stick around and hang out with June. Now granted...today was the one day where my work day starts at 3pm when I pick March up from school. And seeing as how I work crazy hours, all day everyday, I was a bit miffed. That meant that I had to wake up early...again.

But I have to say...sometimes sick days are kinda awesome. I'm hanging out with June and realized that I don't actually get to hang out with her that much from the occasional UES school pickup. Which is interesting considering I'm also technically her babysitter and not just March's.  So we spent the morning and early afternoon watching really awful ABC Family movies, mainly Teen Spirit- though I have no shame in admitting that I thoroughly enjoyed Princess Protection Program. Mostly cause I like Demi Lovato for no reason.

But hanging out with June made me realize something...she just really wants to be a ten year old who has quasi-bad tastes in movies and to just chill for a little bit. Which I get. If I were on the move as much as she, I'd want a break too! Her mom (June's) wants her to have this structured life so she's constantly on the go- gymnastics, lacrosse, viola, and a whole bunch of other mess that I didn't really start till I was 14. (This is me in COMPLETE denial about how much I work and do and blahblahblahblah) So how do you deal with this- a child who wants to be a child and still work within a parents system of what works in their house? Well...I let her go "rogue" sometimes. Let her watch more movies. And laugh. And joke with around. So while I'm laughing at her and her Rusty Spoons voice, I'm having more fun than I thought. Granted, she's ten and probably had a lot of tv time for being sick (as for me my parents always worked so I was stuck in front of the idiot box ALL the time)- so when her mom, Producer Lady got home from her meeting today, she was fuming about the tv. (which is ironic seeing as how Producer Lady produces well...movies)

Now, PL and I have had to have a conversation. Once upon a time I was too strict, asking June if she finished her homework constantly, teaching them discipline through timeouts and such, etc., and PL did not like it. It was explained to me that there is already enough discipline between her, school and sports stuff- and that June is a super mature kid who can get her act together about what she needs to do, so I can leave her be and really focus on March. Therefy, that means that I am meant to be...wait for it...the FUN babysitter who gets to laugh and play with the kids! So now I have no boundary of what to do with this kid. Being with her is different than March...there is a different tactic involved.

I just...haven't figured it out yet....

Language My Dear...is Everything.

"Swearing was invented as a compromise between running away and fighting."

~Peter Finley Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions, 1900

Holy hell can kids curse....

Since the weather in the New York region was phenomenal this past week, I spent the beginning of this week picking March up from school and taking him to the park to burn off some impish energy. (Yes I called March an imp...and yes I am okay with that. And no you may not be...) Tuesday was no exception- we stayed in his school's play yard, with him walking around shooting a rub band gun (completely NOT my fault, though I warned him about the dangers of causing irreversible retinal damage if he wasn't careful) and myself collecting a tan. 

Anyhow, I was sitting, minding my own business- okay that was a lie I was watching BBC's Luther on my Android which is GREAT (oh Idris Elba.....*swoon*)- when I saw  some older school boys playing soccer and one was accidentally pushed to the ground in slow motion. Story goes said boy got a hand flung to the face. I know I shouldn't laugh but that was slightly amusing. What wasn't amusing was the first thing that came out of his mouth when he stared up at his friends from the ground:

"What the f*ck man?! What the f*ck?!!?!?!" -here he gestured wildly-

The only way I could react was internally thinking (though very loudly) "Aren't you ten? What f*cks do you have to give?" But it got me thinking. Dangerous I know. It got me thinking about how I've noticed more and more often that March has taken to saying "ass", "damn", "dang" and on the occasion "f*ck" and "sh*t" and laughing about it whenever I make a face. Now I've been trying to work on this with a Penny-Penalty system (the aliteration was by accident Scouts' Honor!). Whenever he says a "bad" word, he owns me a penny, and if it's really ridiculous then two pennies and so on. This system also works with rule-breaking which has been really effective. So where does a child's need to curse come from? Now coming from me who cusses like a sailor (it's ironic) but still, a serious question! I came across this amazingly well written article on Early Childhood News by Ph.D Timothy Jay about why and what causes children to curse. Very good. A bit dry, but well researched. Basically if you don't plan to read it (which I know you won't but that's okay), its main point is that children's access to so much media and surrounding environment affect how the child registers language and cursing. Kind of self-explanatory right? If you curse, they curse, etc. Though I found a really interesting counterargument on another blog/website about why this particular dad lets his son say whatever he wants. 


His argument? That words are words (which I agree...to an extent) and that if and when kids see that cursing/swearing/blaspheming as forbidden, like Eve...they will take a big ol' bite of that fruit and say "Holy Sh*t Batman, this f*cking apple tastes GREAT!" Okay so maybe not to that full extent, but you get my meaning. Now I get what Mr. Traister is saying, however...there is a certain joy that comes when you are figuring out the appropriate nature/age in which you can curse. Especially in front of your parents. My "coming of cussing age" was 19. Yes. 19. Nearly entering my third year of college. (I still don't curse in front of my dad...that...would be very bad.) 


So what does that mean when it comes to March? Well...I try not to be too "Oh goodness WHYDIDYOUSAYTHATSDMASFJDADFNASDFJ" and instead explain to him what can happen when he uses that type of language. Either way...I still get to keep the pennies he gives me :-P

Why Everyone, Including Adults, Need Time-Outs too (ESPECIALLY when you are 22...)

So kids are funny.

Perhaps it's by design where the size of their craniums don't quite sync up to their body weight so that they just fall over ever...so......slowly. Or maybe it is by sheer accident because their black and white vision allows them to not be so grown up and complicate already discombobulated emotions (there's that English major...). I say this because over the weekend, MANY life factures (both kid and grown-up sized) collided like the good ol' Big Bang. Here's what happened:

I had to spend the previous week dealing with personal family affairs which caused me to have to not only leave town, but leave my babysitting job a day early. Compounded with lady hormones and preexisting life conditions called "I-don't-really-need-to-deal-with-this-motherf*****-s***. Period." I just was having a tough time being around young things. So as you can already forsee, things may not turn out so well. Now I have the fortune of babysitting a brother and sister pair who are 5 years apart. Seeing as they will be the frequent topic of conversation, I shall call the six year old boy March and the 10-nearing-11 year old sister June (I usually only babysit March....I'm a paid playdate essentially! And June is just way too mature for her own good and had a life schedule I secretly envy). March and I have a tenuous relationship in which I often wonder if he is really a forty-six year old man in a little boy body or if he is just bonkers for NO REASON. (I often find that I ask him unbeknownst to my brain 'Who are you March?" to which he will look up at me contemplatively and say "...I'm March D.Babysitter. -Blinks- You're so crazy...". This has actually happened. No, seriously.) Despite this random age/time-vortexy thingy, we usually have a lot of fun together. Like stupid I don't wanna grow-Toys 'R Us fun.

Back to the story. So March misses his father a great deal, who is in LA currently filming tv shows and having essentially my life. What has become apparent is that this "missing a parent syndrome" can manifest in many ways in a little body. Most of them are ugly. And most of them requiring a LOT of patience from you as a babysitter/caregiver. Both things which I didn't have that day. For March, it was a combination of clinging to his Mother and crying at her having to leave him with me, and not listening to me or anyone (which for a six year old he is generally very good about). So, to assuage the time we had left, March and I played Spies. It was very aerodynamic and cardio. And involved Nerf guns. Which was SO EPIC. So June finally finished her homework for the night and joined us. Here is where the pole heads South.  June and March don't get along. At all.  I think this has a lot to do with their 5 year age gap and they don't often play together. But when they do play is it On-like-Donkey-Kong-kids-so-tell-Crash-Bandicoot-to-Move-over. They were rough. And March just couldn't understand that when someone said 'Stop', it was not a suggestion. This my readers, resulted in a March experience a five-min timeout. (Tip of the day: How to make Time Outs Effective.)

I had to sit down and explain to him why the time-out had happened. I found that it was important to really break down that he isn't bad or not good, but that he did something that wasn't good. Differentiation is KEY. This helped him understand that a fun activity stops being fun when not everyone is happy. Now he wasn't too happy about the time out and neither was the mom surprisingly- but that's a different post altogether- and there were probably things I did that weren't so great (cause I'm only 22...yes...yes I am), but all you can do is try. However, I was scared when picking him up from school today that things between us were going to create even more static between us. Sure enough, I walked up to his kindergarden line and he popped up like a Spring Weed and grabbed my hand and off we went to the park where I got a tan, he got sunburned (only slightly!), and we read Star Wars books.

I suppose this really became a lesson about how even adults need time out too. I had to learn things won't always be right when you babysit. Even if you are quite good at it.