So…Dave’s mom is a twin. And my mom is a twin. And they say that twins skip generations, so
basically—we’re doomed. I’ve never
wanted to have twins. And after this
weekend, I feel validated in not necessarily wanting to struggle with double
trouble as a new mom.
So there’s these two twins I
have been babysitting lately who are 4 years old. They’re adorable. They love anything they can do with a
ball—soccer, football, I just taught them volleyball, and handball. But they also love to dance and perform (and
scream). You get the idea, right? Incredibly high energy, loud, and constantly
vying for my attention as I’m babysitting them.
These girls are also very sneaky, however.
You have to know before I
write this that I am a pretty attentive babysitter. I don’t typically turn on the tv for hours
and let the kids watch until bedtime, I don’t fall asleep while the kids are
still awake, I don’t forget to feed them, I don’t lose them. And I have never had to call a mom while I
was babysitting her kids to ask for help with something. Everything yesterday was a first for me…
We were downstairs in the
family room just having a good time playing with the camera on my phone. They love to take pictures of themselves and
me and flip through them over and over. We
were playing with the phone when one of the twins decided she needed a
drink. I went with her to the kitchen to
grab her a glass of water while the other twin sneaked around the corner with
my phone. About 5 minutes later I called out to her, “Where’d you go?” And she came running back oh so innocently
showing me all the pictures she had just taken of the stairs. Looking back, I should have known something
was up when she came running back so quickly, but at the time, I thought
nothing of it.
Everything went well for the
rest of the night while we played at the park with our bikes, razors, balls,
and Frisbees. We ate dinner and they
went down with just 2 bedtime stories and a half-asleep, “Will you come back
tomorrow to play tea party with us?”
Once they were down, their mom called and told me I could go because
their older son was going to be home to just keep an eye on the house until
they arrived home.
I was happy to have
successfully put the girls to sleep and done everything with no mishaps when I
walked right out the door to my car, my hand sifting through the contents of my
purse for my keys the entire way down the driveway and across the street to my
car. When I got to my car I realized my
keys were nowhere to be found. I
shamelessly knelt down and emptied the contents of my purse on the street
searching desperately for my keys, but alas, they were not there. I resourcefully flipped on my “flashlight”
app on my phone to search through the windows of my car to see if I’d
accidentally locked my keys in there.
But I couldn’t see them so I concluded I must’ve left them on a counter inside
somewhere.
When I went back to the house
at 7:30 expecting to find my keys carelessly laid on the kitchen counter, I
found a house completely void of my bright blue BYU lanyard attached to my
keys. At this point I started to realize
one of the girls had probably taken and hidden them, so I retraced our steps
for the day. I searched the toys in the
garage, the refrigerator, the lawn chairs outside, the dress up room, in
between the cushions on the couches, the pantry, the dirty clothes, under the
girl’s pillows and sheets in their bed; everywhere I thought possible. I called their mom and asked about secret
hiding places, I even splashed the girls with water and woke them up to ask if
they knew where my keys were. I turned
that house upside down before my parents called wondering where I was around
8:30. Luckily, I had a spare key at
home in my backpack so my mom came to bring it to me hoping my keys would be
locked in the car, but when she arrived, they weren’t there. At this point I was terrified, remembering
the time one of the girls went to the bathroom by herself while we waited for
her outside in the garage. I was
convinced she had dug to the bottom of my purse, pulled them out, and flushed
them down the toilet. My mom even stuck
her hand in there to check (thanks mom!).
We continued to search the house for another hour until at about 9:40, we
ultimately gave up.
I had decided I must have
dropped them in the street and one of the neighbors had picked them up. I texted the mom and told her I was leaving
and hadn’t found them, asking her to check with her neighbors tomorrow.
So this morning, I woke up to
a text at 8:30 telling me they had found my keys!! One of the girls had hidden them in the
library of the house. Unbelievable! We thought we had checked every possible
place, but were still outsmarted by a 4 year-old. I didn’t know that kids actually played
tricks on their babysitters, but it looks like they do! I think I should take it as a compliment—they
hid my keys because they didn’t want me to be able to leave, right? At least, that’s how I am going to look at it
J
P.S. Last time I babysat, they managed to flood
the family room by plugging the bathroom sink, turning it on, and closing the
door so I couldn’t hear the water. Yeahh…This
kind of thing happens in reality. Who
knew?
I'm still shaking my head....
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