Friday evening, I babysat my favorite neice and nephew while the parental units went out to dinner and to run some errands. Now, I love my niece and nephew, but if there is anything to convince me I don't have the energy to be a single parent, it's baby-sitting two small children under the age of four.
Gracelyn was upset when her parents left--she threw a hissy fit for about twenty minutes. Davis was unphased--except he did try to hug and console his sister, who wanted none of it. So, while Gracelyn had her tizzy, Davis took advantage of having Uncle Michael all to himself. I did manage to get Gracelyn to stop crying doing the following.
Me:
"Davis, do you want to go outside and play?"Small voice:
"I want to go outside and play!"Me:
"Well, if you stop crying, we can go outside."The crying slows to a trickle.
Me:
"Davis, do you want to have fruit snack when we come inside?" (Gracelyn loves fruit snacks..I swear, she might turn into a fruit snack someday).
Small voice:
"I want to go outside and have fruit snacks."Me:
"But we can't outside and have fruit snacks unless you stop crying and put on your shoes."Crying stops.
Small voice:
"Where are my shoes?!?"So, we went outside. It was a nice, pleasant spring evening. We drug out more toys than any two small children and one adult should play with. Gracelyn has a big orange ball (you can see it in the picture of them I posted a few weeks ago). She liked to see me throw it up in the sky and watch it come down and then chase it. One special thing that Gracelyn likes to do with Uncle Michael is look for the moon. The moon had come out early and Gracelyn was happy that we could see in the lingering daylight. As we threw the ball up, she said, "Throw it over the moon, Michael!" So, we spent many attempts counting to three and then I'd throw the ball as high as I could to see if it could over the moon. Alas, we never quite made it, but Gracelyn said it got "close" and that seemed good enough for her.
After a while, it got a bit cool and we went inside. We had fruit snacks, watched Dora and Elmo. And we got Davis wrangled into his pajamas and then bed. I bribed Gracelyn with TWO stories before bed time if she'd let me put Davis to bed first and watch Dora. I came back downstairs after wrangling Davis into bed and then Gracelyn started to talk to me.
Gracelyn:
I want some popcorn.Me:
It's too late. I will come back soon and we can watch a movie and eat popcorn!We then negotiated who could and could not come to this event. Also, a couple of weeks ago, I gave Gracelyn an Aeryl doll from The Little Mermaid. I also told her that she was a princess from a movie and I'd try and find it for her. This is before I knew the doggone thing was out of print on DVD and VHS. So, after figuring out who'd watch the movie, it went like this.
Gracelyn:
I want to watch the movie with the princess!Me:
Snow White? Or Sleeping Beauty? (We'd talked about them both earlier).
Gracelyn:
No, the one with the mermaid. You bring it over and we can watch it!So, I'm sending out an appeal to everyone. If you know somewhere I can find a copy of The Little Mermaid on DVD for less than $40 or so, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to have to keep scouring the countryside....
posted by Michael Hickerson at 4/17/2005 01:40:00 PM |
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