I have mentioned that I scored a sweet work-from-home gig that lets me make a little extra cash while still wrangling my rabid howler monkeys.
A friend is paying me to watch her two-year-old.
Stifle that laughter, please. I’m actually kind of awesome at it. And by awesome I mean no one has suffered serious bodily harm.
But we do fun things like coloring projects. And yesterday I totally took one for the team and bundled us all up for outside time. In the blistering windy cold of winter. This had nothing to do with the fact that I needed the children to not be fighting in the walls of my home. Or that I may or may not have caught the two toddlers (mine and hers) physically fighting over a high chair, and swinging it around the living room trying to grab it from one another.
Toddler squabbles aside, it’s been kind of perfect. Curls (the second toddler – who has a full head of halfway-down-her-back black ringlets) is a very enthusiastic cleaner, and God knows Smush needs some work in that department. Plus it’s like a crash course in sharing for everyone involved, and I imagine that will be helpful once school days roll around for this brood. Either that or they will have learned how to go Jackie Chan on anyone that takes their pencil sharpener.
And even though they make messes, we use teamwork to clean them up.
Confession: I totally blew it in this department early on. Too often I gave in and cleaned up myself because I got sick of the tantrums. When it’s four against one, you can’t win. So you have to learn to stick to your guns and get all hands on deck. And I’ve been nailing it.
Except for this.
That’s sugar. From my sugar bowl. That Smush and Curls emptied into their play sink to “cook.”
Oh look, they were stirring with Goo’s brand new paint brush from Christmas.
And because no toddler fiasco is complete without grinding tiny granules of insect-attracting food pellets into the carpet, I give you this.
As an added bonus, they painted Curls’ pants. In sugar. Which, upon putting them in time-out for taking food and dumping it out, they licked off with their fingers while they happily giggled in their chairs.
I get paid for this.
