Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Adventures in Babysitting

Allow me to first update you on my Chuck 'E' Cheese experience. That place is insane. There are SO many kids and I found it to be pretty overwhelming. One good thing is, they stamp your hand and the hands of the children you brought with an identical stamp that no one else in the place has so no one could technically leave with your kids. Kids are just running around everywhere and adults are standing around looking just as overwhelmed as I did thankfully! My nephew is four and he is, let's say, busy. He wanted to play every game and was moving around at lightning speeds. There is no shortage of 3 feet tall people in that place so finding him was tricky at times. At one point I was soley in charge of my niece who is 20 months. Thankfully, she was kind of scared of the giant Chuck 'E' as well so I pretty much was able to avoid him! She loved the slide and the little jungle gym which I found pretty fun as well! For Tommy though, it was all about getting as many tickets as fast as he could as to buy the best prize! He is so smart for four years old! So he handed me some tokens and said, "Manda, don't lose any games or I am not giving you any more of my tokens." This is a lot of pressure for an Aunt who loves to please this little guy. I spent most of the night after that playing ski ball. I am not professional ski ball player, but I can definetly hold my own! He saw these tickets shooting out and he was like, "Manda, you are so awesome." That was music to my ears! He walked away with a pretty cool Hot Wheels thing so, all in all, pretty great night!
She loved the slide! Ski ball is a sure bet - best bang for your buck!!!
Look how happy he is - he thinks he has the coolest Aunt!
On Saturday, Nick and I headed up to my mom's to pick up the kids for a day of fun. She needed to get some stuff done and we really did want to spend time with just them. So we headed to McDonalds for lunch and playtime. The Mount Airy McD's has a pretty nice indoor play area and the kids loved it! All was fine and good until these 10 year old looking boys decided they wanted to play too and kicked my little Keira. They were way too big to be in there and then they hurt her and I wanted to yell at them so bad but there parents were sitting there and you can't just yell at other peoples kids. What made it worse is that they totally saw what happened and they didn't say anything either. Overall, the kids had fun though and I loved watching them have so much fun together. They really love playing together. My brother Tom, the dad of these kids, is my older brother and we are about the same years apart as his two little ones so it was interesting to think about us playing like that when we were little. I hope we were as good of friends and Tommy and Keira!
Keira hadn't been feeling well so we took her home and spent the rest of the day with Tommy. We asked him what he wanted to do and all he wanted was to go to the library and read some books. So we went to the Howard County Library, it's super nice, and just let him pick and some and then we would read them and put them back and pick out five more. We did this for about two hours - he LOVES to read. It's so cute! Here's a cute picture of Nick reading "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".
I loved spending time with them and really miss them a lot. But more than that, I realized that yes, kids are hard, but it's so worth it. It was fun to be doing it with Nick and see what a good dad he will be!

11 comments:

Matt & April Herman said...

That is such a cute pic of Nick and Tommy:) You know what, the smae thing happened at McDonalds when i had Bailey in the playground. Thes older boys were there and one of them kept throwing his toy at her, and his parents were watching. She was crying, i had to leave. What kind of parent lets there big kid pick on a little baby girl?

Stacey said...

I'm glad you still feel like having kids. Every time my sister watches our children it's a good dose of birth control for her. And I think our kids are pretty good kids and fairly tame. You have to have the overwhelming love that offsets all the rough times! You sound like a fun aunt and wish you were around here! We'd love to have you babysit!

Englishfam said...

You and Nick are going to be the best parents!! Tommy's kids or should I say Tom's kids are so adorable. Kids love to have atleast one aunt to spoil them rotten!

Unknown said...

I am with you about Chuck E Cheese. I hate the place, so noisy and crowded.

losing my needles said...

I think the rule about not being allowed to yell at other kids while their parents there is bogus. I have totally told off older kids when they have been endangering my kid at the playground. Of course, I was there with my playgroup friends, so I had a bunch of similarly minded moms who had my back, but all the same, you gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway, it sounds like you had fun. Lucky you to get to spend some quality time with the kids.

Scrap Happy said...

I have NO problem telling other kids what they've done wrong. I think it's important to show your own kids that bad behavior does NOT go unnoticed or unpunished.


And believe me, after a few years, you'll be able to relax at CEC's and let the kids roam on their own.

Starley Family said...

Skee ball!!! I loved Chuck E Cheese growing up. We went for Katelyn's birthday so maybe we'll have to start a tradition...or we could just go and avoid the big Mouse himself.

Nate and Lori said...

I love your cute new layout!!!

Parkinson Family said...

You qualify as the world's coolest aunt and uncle! You did so many fun things with your adorable and active nephew and niece! I have yet to tackle Chuck E Cheese in the past 15 years! You're more tactful than I am. I probably would have told the preteens to watch out! How cute is your Valentine's background?!

Stacey said...

I like your layout too. If you don't mind sharing - how did you get it. I can't figure out how to change it other than the pre made templates they give (which I didn't see your heart paper).

Mel said...

Funny stories!! I was just at Chuckee Cheese and my kids love it. I agree though about it. The kids never have enough tokens!! No matter how much money you spend. You guys will be awesome parents and definately make a great aunt and uncle.