the end of the longest school year EVER

Over the next few weeks, the only 'we-hate-nap-time' parents to ever walk the face of the earth had some other creative ideas for me.  Me, mother of six.  Babysitter extraordinaire.  I mean, remember I was babysitting back when things were weird for my 7th grade self and handling it like a champ.  Give me some credit, please. 

Suggestions from Geraldine and Simon included, but were not limited to:

Even a fun basement playroom wasn't
enough to keep a sleepy guy awake.

     1.  Maybe Theo could go in a different room in my house during quiet time.  Um, not every space in my house is available to your kid.  Particularly while I had workmen parading in and out.  Weird and presumptuous.  Towards the end of the school year I had him play in the basement play area during nap time.  He STILL laid down and went

to sleep when he was tired.  No joke.

     2.  Maybe I could set a timer so that he would know when quiet time was over.  Not sure how this differed from me waking him up to insure he hadn't slept too much, except they possibly didn't believe that I was waking him up.

     3.  At one point right before Christmas despite my rule of no outside toys, Simon showed up with a plastic bag holding a transformer toy that came with a zillion pieces.  It was Theo's favorite.  For sure he won't fall asleep if I offer this to him during nap time.  This dad didn't get it.  Your kid isn't bored - HE'S FREAKING TIRED!  I envisioned many pieces getting misplaced in Tank and Reggie's very messy room.  I wasn’t interested in tracking missing  pieces to a favorite toy (thus the no-outside-toy rule's roots)

This is Tank and Reg's room on a good day.

Bouncing back to the dilemma in mid-September . . . I finally admitted to Geraldine that I saw that she was hiring a different sitter on the website.  A website that still sends me job alerts.  I had a mom on maternity leave and occasionally checked it to see if someone needed a temporary sitter, especially when I couldn't sleep.

I had struggled with what to do for 2 weeks.  Limbo sucked.  Would she cut me loose before I found a replacement family?  What teacher would need a sitter to start late September
?  One friend suggested that I apply to her online job posting so she knew that I had seen it.  I loved that idea, but I really wanted to see her face when I told her that I knew she was shopping around.  

Geraldine dropped off her boys one morning and when she stepped outside, I followed her.  I told her that I was going to just put an end date on our time together because it looked like she was busy making other plans anyway.

Not sure if you recall my description of her over-the-top, dramatic way of speaking.  Well, she was all apologies for having done that.  She rained down compliments about my care and not wanting the boys to go anywhere else.  This online nanny search was just a knee jerk reaction to my insistence that there would always be a nap time or a quiet time in my house.  

We agreed to continue for the rest of the school year.  It was perhaps a good decision financially, but the remainder of the school year was insufferable.  I hated most of it.  Geraldine and Simon and their strange fixation on keeping their tired kid tired until they could get him home so he could sleep as soon as possible for them was irritating.  Her kid’s need to be the first to open the door and their insistence on fixing his disappointment was grating.  How she dealt with the boys and spoke to them made me nauseated.  

All of this babysitting fun combined with a kitchen no one would finish and my celiac disease dietary struggles and I am telling you - NO ONE WAS HAPPIER TO SEE THE SCHOOL YEAR END THAN ME!