The best babysitters' club
They don't know CPR but they let you drink pop at ten PM
Psst: Comments are open to all—not just paid readers!
My kids are out playing right now with their favorite sitters. They’re twin teenage brothers, and when they come over, everything else ceases to exist for my sons. My kids are head over heels in love with these guys. There is also typically at least one thing per sit that more experienced sitters wouldn’t do, that I wouldn’t have done when I was a sitter. Like, pre-COVID, not have the kids in bed by the time we’re home so we’d wait patiently/tipsily until they finished before we sent them home. Or leave a splayed open box of cold pizza on the counter or a torn-open Jimmy John’s bag on the couch. The last time one came recently, I learned he intended to take my unvaccinated kids to the gas station to buy them a treat—I hadn’t planned on this happening so I didn’t give them masks, but fortunately, he’d left his wallet at home. I’m not sure what will happen tonight but they did arrive 15 minutes late and didn’t let me know until I texted, “Are you guys still coming?” “Oh yeah, we’re leaving now.” But they’re really nice kids, don’t charge a lot, and definitely play hard with my boys. They’re the FUN sitters.
My brother and I had a fun sitter when we were kids. His name was Spencer, and he was also a cute high school boy like these lads are. Our favorite game was to have him lay on the couch. We’d gather all the couch cushions and bed pillows we could find and pile them on top of him and then climb up top. Jack and I would perch on top of this teetering mountain of pillows, giggling with anticipation until Spencer would at some point roar and throw us off. Clearly, we could have broken a bone or something else (I remember on one sit, the stick part of a hobby horse snapped). He also would play hide and seek with us but instead of staying in the house like we normally did, he’d hide on our neighbors’ property, using the whole street, which could have gotten us in trouble. My mom says she remembers coming home once and Spencer running to the front hall, breathless and sweaty, and saying “Oh! You’re home!” Like my kids, we weren’t in bed yet either.
I asked witches, who was your most fun sitter?
“My cousin Lisa. We would put my sister to bed and I’d stay in my room for a few minutes before joining Lisa downstairs. We snacked and watched tv and as soon as I felt the floor rumble with the garage door, I’d run to my room.”
“Stephen W. let us play ball in the house on the stairs.”
“Carrie S. was so beautiful and kind and let us watch Girls Just Want To Have Fun as much as we wanted.”
“We had three sisters who would rotate in when I was a kid, and they would let us watch 227 and MTV and I've never know anyone cooler than them.”
“I lived in San Francisco in the early '80s during my toddler/ early preschool years, and my favorite babysitter was Diana, who I remember having dark lipstick and a pretty smile. She made me unlimited PBJ. My parents said every time she came over she was wearing a corset and ripped fishnets and knee-high combat boots. They were always curious where she went when she got done babysitting.”
“Vicky S. taught us how to make Kraft macaroni and cheese and burp on command.”
“I don’t remember her name but my favorite lived on our block and used to give me chocolate milk in a baby bottle. It was so awesome I remember it from that long ago.”
“Julie A. had a black MG convertible and I got to ride in the ‘back seat’ which wasn't really a seat, but a spot where you could fit like a backpack or whatever. She had plywood on the bottom which she covered with a beach towel so it didn't get too hot from the engine. I loved riding around in that convertible, and her.”
“MTV, specifically Sting.”
By the time I finished writing this, the twin boys brought my boys back around dinner time, but not before they took my kids to the gas station and let them buy a gigantic Gatorade and their own bag of Sour Patch Kids, each. 🤙 My six-year-old lovingly patted them both on the behind, vigorously, to say goodbye.
Btw: Witches is going on break from now until about Aug 18 or so. Family vacation, then kid birthday, and also the obligatory massaging of the other kid’s feelings. Take care of yourself and if you see these Trade Joe’s cookies as I ddi recently, buy them and hide them from your family.
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One witchy thing
I remember having a ton of fun with Shelly but apparently she was wildly unreliable (this explains why I also remember sitting in the corner while my mother taught freshman statistics, which I also loved). She told us absurd lies to make us behave, like that you should never jump in puddles because they might be the opening to an underground lake and you would fall in and get trapped under the pavement and drown, but she took us to visit her friend who had a Crazy Daisy sprinkler, which we thought was the greatest thing in the world.