More about baby sitting

 Very often friends will ask me what I've been doing to fill my time since I retired.  As anyone knows who reads this blogspot on a regular basis, part of what I do is baby sit for grand children.

When I say this to some people-especially those who haven't been around young children in a long time-they kind of shake their heads and look at me with a weird expression.  Then they'll say something like I hope your kids appreciate what you do for them. 

I quickly explain, I'm the one who should be giving thanks because there's nothing more enjoyable for me than spending time with my grand children.

When I say this, they respond by asking what I do all that time.

Well, in an attempt to at least partially answer that, I herewith offer an hour-by-hour description of a recent day with my two grand daughters who are ages 6 & 9.  I showed up at my daughter's house at 7 A.M. and left at about 5 P.M. Yes, that's a long day and I admit to being ready for a glass of wine but it was well worth it.

Here's how the day went:

Arrive 7 A.M.  Gave the girls about 10 minutes to finish their breakfast while I went over some stuff with my daughter.

About 7:15 went downstairs with the girls to a playroom/office where we played school.  Brooke (9) and I were students and Courtney (6) was the teacher.

Shortly after we got down there, Courtney sounded the fire drill.  We all went upstairs, out the back door and across the yard just as my daughter was backing out of the garage.  Since the girls were still in their jammies, she wanted to know what we were doing.  Courtney said we couldn't talk now because it was a fire drill.  Becky continued on her way to work.

We returned to the 'classroom' where school continued for about the next 90 minutes or so.

By 8:30ish they tired of that game so they wanted to build a character who would be me on their Wii.  For the uninitiated, a Wii is a video game.

We spent some time doing that after which the girls played a game of their own while I read the newspaper.

At about 9:15 we went to the garden to pick vegetables.  Then we brought them in, washed them and put them away.  Courtney noticed a leaf outside with a cluster of small orange eggs on it so we brought that in and did a little research on my iPad.  We found out they were squash bugs.  Courtney wanted to keep them so they could hatch but I talked her into giving them back to nature.

By now it's about 10 o'clock at which time we went upstairs where guest reader Mr. Stockwell read stories to the girls' classes while they pulled students and tested them. 

By 10:45 the girls wearied of that game so we went downstairs and played Clue.  By 11:30 their hunger pains reached intolerable levels so I let them watch a show while I made them lunch.

12-1:15 Lunch and rest time.  The girls played quietly in their rooms while I played games on my iPad.  I was hoping to doze off but Courtney jumped off her toy box which was right above my head, scraped her leg and summoned her sister.  They both came rushing downstairs announcing a grave emergency.  Out with the Neosporin and bandaids.

With that catastrophe out of the way, we decided to go to the library. 

2:30ish-home from the library so on to swimming and dance routines by the pool.

3:45 came in for snacks and more dancing routines but eventually Courtney wouldn't share her iPad so we had a brief period of mediation.

4:15 or so.  We decided to play checkers.  First Brooke and I played.  Then the winner (me) played Brooke and Courtney.  Courtney wanted to make her own decisions so Brooke went to her room to play and Courtney and I played until her mom's return home at around 4:45 to 5:00.

Thus endeth a long, but fun, day.