I’ve been working as a certified professional sitter for a babysitting referral service for about a year now (but I’ve been working with kids younger than me in all manner of childcare venues since I was a kid myself). You know that your job as a sitter has crossed the line from “what you do” to “who you are” (and that maybe you do it a little too much) when...
- You’ve got the Barney songs (yes, it turns out there’s more than one) stuck in your head.
- Your body is not so much an organic being as it is a jungle-gym.
- Your taste buds and corresponding opinions have developed in such a way that you now see macaroni & cheese, chicken nuggets, and baby carrots as constituting a well-rounded meal.
- The parents’ instructions for using the television remote control are more complex than their instructions for taking care of their child.
- You know you’ll have to put the kids down for a nap, so you run them as hard as you can a few hours before nap time... which unfortunately wears you out long before they get tired.
- You have a car seat permanently installed in your car... and you’ve never had children of your own.
- You’ve memorized “The Pokey Little Puppy” and “The Shy Little Kitten.”
- You sometimes forget to talk normally to other adults and end up saying “Is you hungwies in your tummies?” before meals and “Ni-ni!” before going to sleep.
- Your job perks include free snacks, i.e., “Help yourself to anything: this is the pantry, and the ‘fridge is in the corner.”
- You get hired to watch the kids for a few hours so the mom and dad can--ironically--attend their parenting class.
- You’d rather play Candy-Land than the Wii, because you’ve actually got a chance of winning against the kid at Candy-Land.
- On a lucky day, the parents will order in the most rare and delicious of all foods for you and the children to dine on--pizza!
- You answer to nearly every name and title under the sun--including Isabelle, Laura, Janet, Kelly, Teacher, Mrs., and Auntie--as long as it’s spoken by a remotely familiar child’s voice.
- You bring the old, wooden, lackluster set of Tinker-Toys--which has broken and missing pieces--from your own childhood over for the kids to play with (who love your well-used Tinker-Toys anyway) and the parents ask you where you got them so they can go buy the shiny, new, plastic versions of Tinker-Toys for their kids.
- The baby is teething and starting to eat baby foods, it takes longer to clean her head, her arms, her high-chair, her bib, her clothes, and yourself after her meal than it did to actually feed her.
- You find yourself seething with jealousy when the child mentions how much fun the other sitter is when she comes over.
- Having a child sneeze or cough (or worse) in your face doesn’t even faze you.
- Nap-time is one of your favorite times of the day because you’re getting paid to relax with a book or in front of the TV.
- You wish you got a nickel every time someone, upon learning what you do for a living, said, “Oh! I hear babysitters make very good money,” because then you’d be earning more than you’re currently earning at your job.
- You keep a travel-size bottle of antibacterial lotion in your back pocket to protect kids from dirty germs and to protect yourself from the dirty kids.
- You expend all your strength and patience just arm-wrestling the baby while trying to change his diaper without letting him kick you, roll over, or crawl away.
- Of all the alleged “super” heroes in Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” Kari--well-prepared, enthusiastically dedicated, and faithful to the end--is your hero. http://video.yandex.ru/users/min-net05/view/779
... And when I say “you,” of course I’m really just referring to myself.
