Babysitting

I was babysitting two adorable little kids earlier today. At two and four, they're a bit precocious but they try so hard to be good. 'Emma' is the older, while 'Tim' doggedly tries to keep up with her in whatever she's doing.

Emma is learning to read with some very basic phonics books, but instead of reading the words, she makes up her own story to go with the pictures. In fact, she often will burst into narrating her own life. For example, if I tell her not to eat any more crackers, she'll narrate: "Emma looked away, wanting to SCREAM, but she wouldn't, because Mama told her to be good." It's hilarious to listen to.

Tim, on the other hand, barely gets a chance to talk these days. Emma is always interrupting, and he also is just starting to speak clearly enough for me to understand. He gets extremely frustrated when he can't get past the "w" sound. He'll start to say, W-w-w-" and then ends up with "w-w-I CAN'T TALK!" Usually it's "When's Mama coming home?" but sometimes it's "Where's my juice?" so I have to listen carefully and not misinterpret, a difficult task when Emma is hanging from your neck.

I love watching these kids grow--I've babysat for their family since the summer before 9th grade, and it's scary to see how fast they're grasping things like clarity of speech and even toilet training in Tim's case. They only melt down when Mom comes home, they rarely cry, and if I tell them something's a bad idea, they usually won't do it. They're a real joy to sit for.