I want to take you back to a simpler time, a time when I played Super Mario Brothers on our Nintendo with Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer playing in the background. Girls wore leg warmers and pulled their big hair back with neon scrunchies. I read The Babysitters Club Series and dreamed of my first babysitting job.
Finally, one day, I got the call I was waiting for. (No, not the call from the cute boy I was pining for.) The call to babysit! It was for 2 hours on a Saturday evening for my little sister’s best friend. I was stoked!
Being responsible, I showed up five minutes early, got the run down on where the emergency numbers were and what to make for dinner – all the necessary details. We played with her Cabbage Patch Doll. Then, it was time for dinner – hot dogs. I know that for the normal 99.9% of the population cooking a hot dog is not a daunting task. However, I was being raised by hippy vegetarian parents and a hot dog had NEVER touched our handmade pottery plates. I could have whipped up some millet with tofu, but that was not on the menu. I clearly overcooked the hot dog and subsequent hot dogs until they all exploded. Apparently, with enough ketchup, even rubbery, exploded hot dogs can be fed to a 9-year-old! Who knew!
After dinner, I got the awesome idea that we should take the money from her piggy bank and go to the candy store. So, we put on our jelly shoes and off we went. Let’s just say that $6.27 bought a lot of candy in the 80’s. We ate that candy until we both had belly aches. Looking back, I’m just glad I didn’t have to put her to bed that night!
Between the exploding hot dogs and feeding her way too much sugar, I think I totally nailed my first babysitting job. What do you think?
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://sitter.app/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/zmama.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Dawn is the mother of three boys. As a child, Dawn grew up in a small community in Upper Michigan. It was there that she was able to freely explore Lake Michigan and the forests that line its coast as her own enchanted playground. This setting, coupled with her parents free spirit, gave her the opportunity to discover the wonderful magic of childhood. As an adult, Dawn uses this upbringing as a background for her expressiveness, her creativity, her parenting and her travel.[/author_info] [/author]
