Babysitting

[JamieJL]

Lord have mercy I am totally beat down!!  This is gonna be a long one....My hubby volunteered to keep his friends' 3 kids last night cause their dad had to work and conveniently forgot to tell me until they were actually on their way over.  I was heated!  What burned my hide more than anything though is that I ended up completely taking care of them while he parked his keister on the couch watching YouTube videos and didn't bother to help me.  I broke the mother of all sweats cooking for, feeding, bathing and putting FIVE kids to bed!!!  And he waited until I was all done to ask me if I needed any help.  I'm pretty sure there was steam coming from my ears because unfortunately he does that a lot.  I'll be washing dishes and be on the last pot and THAT'S when he'll ask if I need help or I'll be cleaning the house from top to bottom and he'll wait till I'm just picking up the last of the toys or finishing the last load of laundry to try and pitch in and I'm like "Where the #$!@ were you about 5 or 6 rooms ago!!" Even worse than that was these kids.  I don't know how to say this without sounding like a #$!@ but these kids got on my nerves and I was not sad to see them leave!!!!  The oldest one, who is 7, kept complaining about the little handful of onions that I'd dropped into the spaghetti sauce saying that they didn't eat vegetables at home.  Mind you he'd never tried it before but kept saying "I'm pretty sure I won't like it" and I tried to keep my cool but all that was going through my mind was "I'm pretty sure you can go hungry!".  Not to mention that they kept asking me to give them snacks.  Their dad allows them to gorge on snack cakes and chips to keep them out of his hair so they figured the same should apply at my home.  Then the middle child (5) I'm positive he has ADHD.  His attention span just ran out before I could begin this sentence...it's terrible.  He was climbing all over our furniture and I guess that's something he's used to at home but we worked hard for the furniture we have and I would $#@* bricks of some of it got broke cause it ain't cheap ya know?  Before bath time he took a green crayon and started doodling on the counter tops in my bathroom!!  Still tryna keep my cool I told him that if his dad wouldn't allow him to do it then he shouldn't be writing on my stuff.  Of course he thought that was hysterical....still tryna keep my cool.  I finally got them all bathed, in their bed clothes and their teeth brushed when the youngest (4) pulled her young and the restless card.  I had a sleeping arrangement set up where the oldest, who is the same age as my son, would sleep in the same bed cause they both had school the next day and I wanted to wake them up first. And then the youngest two would sleep on an air mattress in my 2 yr old daughter's room and I'd wake up them up last.  She started hollering and crying cause "she didn't like my daughter's room".  I told her there was nothing wrong with that room, her brother and my daughter would be in there with her so she was going to be fine.  But last time they stayed at our house she got away with her dramatic act cause it was late and I didn't wake up the whole house but this time I was not going to negotiate with her.  She could cry herself to sleep for all I cared.  When she realized it wasn't going down the way she'd hoped she gave in and parked it on the air mattress.  Just when I thought I could kick back the oldest comes to me scratching himself silly.  He had what started out as these small bumps but evolved into these huge clusters of welts.  His parents didn't know what was wrong with him so I had to assume maybe he touched some poison ivy so I had to make a trip at 11pm to the store to get some anti-itch spray only to get back and put it on him and him tell me it burns.  Just drama.  I didn't get to sleep till 2am cause the two little ones kept waking up cause the other would be kicking the other or end up laying on top of the other, it was a hot mess.  I had to get back up at 5:30 and get my son around to catch his 6:20 bus but no sooner did he start finishing up his cereal the youngest comes downstairs naked from the waist down.  I'm like "why are you naked" and she says "I peed!".  I was STILL tryna keep my cool so I asked her why she didn't go to the bathroom and she said "cause I couldn't stop".  So I figured it might not be too bad I'd just go check it out.  This chick pretty much laid in the bed and peed not only on herself but on her brother.  It was on him AND he was laying in it!  I still don't know how that happened unless she copped a squat ON him!  Gross I don't even wanna think that she may have done that.  Disgusted I took her underwear and bed clothes to the bathroom to hand wash and put in the dryer.  Once I got done with that the boy was up realizing he'd been peed on and HE got naked from the waist down.  I had to wash his clothes as well and put them back on him after they dried cause they didn't have a change of clothes besides the dirty ones they took off the night before.  One by one they woke up the whole lot except my daughter so they decided it would be as good a time as any to start screaming, hollering and wrestling and it wasn't barely past 6!  That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.  I rounded up all 4 of them, made my son sit on the living room floor and the other 3 sit and eat cereal in complete silence.  When they were done they joined my son and watched cartoons....in silence.  They of course were angry but I'd had all that I could take from all of them.  I was especially irritated with my son cause he knows I don't tolerate that but I supposed that kids are gonna act up when their friends are around and see how far they can push that envelope.  When my hubby got home to shower up from his work out he watched them while I shuttled my son off to school.  By the time I got back their dad showed up to take them away.  They couldn't have gotten dressed faster.  Their dad offered me $60 which I happily accepted until my husband took $20 for his lunch!  After they left I ripped my hubby a new one.  He set me up for failure and I will NEVER be set up like that again. EVER.  That being said, I know I sound like an epic whiner and that's fine but my hat is off to women who have more than 2 children, single mothers.......all mothers.  I feel like I got it easy with the two I have.  They're not angels but pretty well behaved........unless of course they're tryna show out for their peers which they showed me last night.  I hope those of you out there dealing with a big family truly get the mother's day I KNOW you deserve!!!!!!