Captain’s Log star date 4302011
Did you know Aaron is a secret super hero?
Okay so I’m not a captain, this isn’t my blog, and well I’ll get to the hero part. I think. Today was note worthy enough that I had to add my two cents to Aaron’s blog.
So if you don’t know, I’m Aaron’s sister and I’ve taken a handful of Saturday’s while Aaron is on “vacation” to relieve Lauren. Somehow I thought today would be a good day to invite my friend JoAnn, her daughter Kaylyn (Mojo’s age) and her son Jack (age 3) over for a play date. All the kids have met and played at outside venues before.
Now I have to back up a bit and let you know I don’t cook…or at least I try but it sometimes ends up a pizza night instead. So today I got up early to clean, vacume, do laundry and workout before I headed upstairs to bake cookies (which after I cooked them are really crackers with chocolate in them) AND made sweet potato fries. At this point I’m tired and just about to start my babysitting adventure for the day. Hmmmm….maybe I should have slept in instead.
After the kids were up from napping Mojo kept running to the window checking to see if Kaylyn had arrived yet. I finally decided to get the girls’ shoes on so we could all play outside while we waited for our play-dates to arrive. Once outside I realized my phone was inside…not really handy when you’re friend has never been to your house before. Mojo went in to retrieve it. Of course there was a message, my friend was running late since she couldn’t wake Jack up from his nap.
Just then the phone rang, JoAnn and I had a short conversation, and I hung up the phone. Meanwhile Mojo, who knew it was Kaylyn’s mommy, went into a full sprint towards me. Just as she got to the point were she would normally have slowed down in order not to bulldoze over me…. BAM!…silent pause….SCREAAAAAAAM! YUP ….both knees fall on hard cement. Of course she was wearing a skirt to boot. I scoop Mojo up only to notice at the same time that Pinot is sitting on the sidewalk, one shoe on, one shoe off.
Somehow we all make it inside, boo boo patched up, crisis subsided with a little help from the Barenstien Bears when Kaylyn and Jack arrive just in time to destroy every possible inch of the house that Lauren so nicely cleaned before they came. I thank my stars she didn’t come home early tonight. Everything may not have been in the right place….but at first glance at least when she got home it LOOKED like it was. **wink**
After meltdowns, getting over the guilt of not giving my nieces a bath, and late bedtimes things finally start to wind down. Now here’s where two of the best things I can remember about babysitting my nieces occur.
After books when Mojo goes to bed she wants you to make up a story. Long ago when this started I asked her “what would you like the little girl’s name in this story to be?” She logically said “DAN!”. Hence ever since then I’ve been telling stories about a little girl named “Dan”. Tonight I told a story about Dan’s Dad, a firefighter who became a hero.
Mojo gets scared at night and one thing her mom does is tell her to think of three things. Lately she’s been saying there are too many for her to choose from. So I told her to think of blowing bubbles with her Daddy. Again with her logic Mojo said that her daddy wasn’t anything, certainly not a hero. So I told her that I happened to KNOW that her daddy was a secret superhero. She asked “Can he fly?”, I said “no”, Mojo: “is he Flash?”,….I said I was sworn to secrecy but that she should ask her daddy about it and that I could GUARANTEE that her Daddy was indeed a secret superhero.
Here’s the thing. It’s the truth. He has helped rescue me in my time of desperation and need and I could not think of a better way to show my gratitude than to make sure that his little girl knew she had a superhero for a dad.
#2 I was exhausted tonight and it was a battle trying to get Mojo to go to sleep. She’s going through an “I’m scared” phase. I end up basically telling her to deal with it and I’m not coming back upstairs after climbing two flights up and down three or more times. Tonight after repeating this record and starting for the door I stopped. These opportunities will not exist forever I told myself. For the first time in two and a half years I layed (or squished) myself into Mojo’s bed and stayed with her until she fell asleep. She cuddled right up to me and held my hand. I love my nieces and my brother and sister-in-law….and I can’t think of a luckier person in the world right now.