babysitting | therobynbirdsnest

Posts Tagged With: babysitting

paint and a bit of roughhousing

Posted on December 15, 2015 by robynbird

I babysat this afternoon for a friend and neighbor. A five year old (didn’t make the kindergarten cut off) girl and her two and a half year old little brother. Normally when I babysit for this family, it’s in the evening when the little dude is already sleeping and his big sister and I play for a bit before her bedtime. But today it was full on fun!
Big sis, M, and I took advantage of our unseasonably warm weather and took paints and paper onto the table on the back porch.

This is my favorite of M’s paintings. First, she painted her mom, “Miss Robynbird, what color pants was Mommy wearing?” (She was wearing jeans.) Then she added herself with a “tropical bird” on her shoulder.

My painting is more self-explanatory.

I absolutely adore my tree, but the pressies…meh. I’m not an artist like that, but I love to play with color.

Little brother, B woke up and we had a snack. Then we played. It’s been a loooooooong time since I rolled around on the floor “roughhousing” with small children. When B accidentally head butted me we changed the nature of our play. My head is hurting a little this evening, but it was worth it. I miss spending my days with small people.

Then I came home and the boys and I had breakfast for dinner!
It was a pretty great Robynbird day.

Categories: me | Tags: babysitting, early childhood, fun, paint, play, roughhousing, warm weather | 2 Comments

early morning trains

Posted on December 12, 2015 by robynbird

This is what we do at my house before 6:30 on a Saturday morning. It’s been fourteen years since I had a four year old in my home.
I forgot how early they wake up!

My sweetie, little D needed someone to look after him while his daddy went to a holiday party last night. So I picked him up at school yesterday (after spending an hour visiting former colleagues and students) brought him home where he and Thing G and I watched all the ponies episodes off the DVR then when Thing C came home we ate little D’s favorite dinner: “Apoachlay” (that would be Chipotle to you and me). We played a little while then he went to bed.
Sweet dreams, little D.

This morning at 5:30 my bedroom door opens and little D comes across the room he says: Hi Robynbird! Hi YBW!
Then he climbs in bed for a snuggle and the first thing he says is: You hot Robynbird. (My skin was warm from being under the blankies and his feet were COLD!) He accidentally kicked the blankets on the other side of him and said: Oh! I sorry, YBW.
I told him YBW wasn’t in bed, he was downstairs on his computer.
He said: We go see him.
I said: Not yet, let’s snuggle for a minute.
A minute was not a lie…we were up and he was raring to go. (But he had to be quiet because Thing C and Thing G were still sleeping.)

So trains it was.
YBW and I built the track and little D drove the train all around.
Then he ate two huge bowls of cereal then got dressed. It wasn’t much longer before he got picked up to go to swim lessons.
Did I go back to bed?
Nope.
Why not? You ask.
Because I’m an idiot.