Usually a babysitter can bribe a child not to tell the child's parents when something goes wrong. It's a little harder to escape liability when the child is your sister and the parents your parents. It's even harder when the category of "things that can go wrong" includes eyes falling out and noses forgotten at bedtime. Worst of all, when the usual bribe -- junk food -- is inapplicable, all bets are off for the poor babysitter.
Such were my adventures in babysitting my youngest sister. Her eye really did fall out and sometimes I forgot to put a nose on her at bedtime. Those things sound much worse than they really are. For years she didn't eat any solid food (chocolate is still anathema to her) -- so I couldn't use Hershey bars as bribes and didn't have the heart to use them as threats.
I also babysat my young cousin in the summer. I gave her baths with a little Korean* and supervised her at nap time. The baths were only complicated by my cousin's fear of water in her eyes; she used to wear a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle helmet to play in the sprinklers. Nap time was fine; I rewarded quiet behavior with the privilege of petting our cat. My system was arbitrary. "[Cousin], you've been quiet for five minutes, you may pet the cat six times. [Sister], you've been quiet for ten minutes, you may pet the cat four times." You can imagine this sometimes caused fights between the cousin and the little Korean, but if you're making noise, then who's petting the cat?!
I once babysat for the two young daughters of some friends I knew through work. I played in the yard with the girls and let them knock me over. The older girl particularly enjoyed this game. I worried that I might have created a monster. After dinner, the girls and I watched Barbie as Rapunzel on DVD. Poor Barbie spent most of the movie locked in a tower, the prisoner of a hideous CGI witch.
"Did you like the movie?" I asked the girls as I tucked them in.
"I liked the witch," the older girl announced.
Definitely a monster.
My worst babysitting experience came when I strayed far from babysitting my own kith and kin. Worse even than babysitting for total strangers is babysitting for strangers who are also rich and famous. And strange.
In college I babysat for the children of a celebrity. I've blocked out most of the stress and trauma involved in those evenings, but I still remember the 30-page manual I was handed upon arrival at the mansion. I also remember the nauseating moment when the father called to check on us and I couldn't figure out how to answer their fancy, office-style telephone. Hint: picking up the receiver and saying "hello?" were not enough to be heard. They were enough, though, for me to hear the father shouting "HELLO?!" and directing his wife to call the police. Page 12 of the manual told me to run with the children to the neighbor's house in the event of a kidnapping attempt; I guess he assumed that's what had happened.
That experience turned me off from babysitting for awhile.
It was probably for the best.
*Again, my sister
Who were the celebrities you were babysitting for and how did you end up with a job like that??
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