Happy Blogversary, Happy Birthday to ME!

This is another backdated post, really its January 19, 2009, my birthday! I had passed my blogversary on January 15. I reached my 10,000th hit on October 27, 2008. This will be my last and final post on this blog. It’s been a year of great fun, and I thank my readers for encouraging me to continue. I thank Mindy for being there in the beginning and getting me into blogging in the first place. Lots of you first found this blog once it was halfway done, so you can always look through the archives if you want to read more.

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My Birthday

On my Jewish blog, I put a poll asking you to guess what age I’m turning. The majority said the right age. Some of you knew beforehand that I was turning 20, and some were just good guessers. A few chose 19, I’m thinking that maybe they didn’t read the whole question, and chose the age that I was at the time. It’s a cool age to celebrate, I am now 2 decades old!

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What Bloggers said about “The Babysitter”

If you wrote about me, and I didn’t include you, then please link me to it so I can include it. Thank You!

Frum Punk:

The Babysitter: Adorably awesome and always alert, Babysitter builds upon bounties of brilliance. Channeling child care with life lessons, she seldom sees anything but the best in any situation.

Mike In Midwood:

Babysitter: A blog on babysitting and handling children. Usually gets into the psychology of children or parents in different actions. And at this very moment the babysitter is on a streak of "rights".

Child Ish Behavior:

The Babysitter- She will watch your kids(if you tell her in advance), comment on lots of blogs, and tell you how to put a good spin on things.

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Key Word Analysis

I’ve had a bunch of interesting keyword searches of how people came to my blog, but I didn’t think of saving it from the website, and once it went over 500, they all got erased and now its only the keyword searches since the 500th one. But some of the main ones were “excuses for not babysitting”, “spoiled children help”, “why kids don’t like sleep”, “Connie Talbot”, “Isaac Hersh”, and “kids shower products”.

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Bloggers I have Met

Mindy, Jessica, Jacob Da Jew, Child Ish Behavior, Frum Skeptic, Moshe, Frum Punk, Bas Melach, and Sweety.

Bloggers not included in meet ups, I met individually. Mindy I had known beforehand. Jessica, I didn’t really get to meet, but I got to see her one time from the city bus window. Jacob Da Jew I met one shabbos, cause he came to a neighbors house, it was a pleasant surprise, but I was a bit shy. My mother actually remembered him from a time he sang at my neighbor’s son’s bar mitzvah. So it was a cool small world.

Meetup #1

About the famous blogger meetup that was written up about already 3 times, I will now say over my side of it. First here’s Frum Punx, Frum Skeptic’s and childish’s.

So at first I wasn’t going to go, but then I decided to go and was so happy I went. Frum Skeptic was really kind to meet me half way, and then I felt more comfortable, cause I had time to get to know her. When we got to Moshe’s house, I got to see his cute little Shlomik playing ball in the drive way with his grandmother. Then Frum Skeptic and I were brought into the house where we waited for the others to come back from shul.

I’ll skip all the extra stuff, and get right to the people stuff. So when I was walking over to Moshe’s house with FrumSkeptic, she told me that Frum Punk was going to be there too. I hadn’t known this, and it was a cool surprise. So Frum Punk comes in and asks people their names, then he turns to me and asks my name, and it took me a few minutes to realize which name he was talking about, I was unsure if I was supposed to say “The Babysitter” or my real name. But then at the end I said both, and that was solved.

Then Moshe brought out the food, and I learned about the Russian Volba from Frum Skeptic. It was interesting and kinda gross at the same time, to see her peel away the fish skin and eat the fish as if it was a snack. Although she said that usually her father does that part for her, so she wasn’t used to peeling the fish. She said that in school she would bring it for snack sometimes, and that it would smell bad, but it still tasted good. It was cool to find out about different cultures. But yet this didn’t make me loose my appetite.

Then Moshe brought out his Dafina, I tried to eat a bit of it, but it wasn’t my taste. Moshe kept insisting that I eat and wanted to know why I didn’t eat anything. I told him the food was just too interesting or too fancy for me. I really do like eating.

Then we had lots of discussions about all kinds of stuff. At one point I embarrassed myself by blurting out something without thinking. I mistakenly said one abbreviation instead of another, abbreviations that were very similar sounding, but had totally different meanings. That caused a bit of a reaction, and Moshe said he was going to write about what I said. Then later when I checked his blog, he hadn’t wrote about it and I was relieved!

Meanwhile, Moshe was very into his drinking and stuff, and he brought out all kinds of bottles for us to try. Childish had no problem trying the drinks. FrumSkeptic tried some stuff too. I can’t remember if Frum Punk had anything, but probably. So then Frum Punk said I should drink something too, and at first I said that I wouldn’t. But then I agreed to drink something, to make up for not eating anything. Or some other deal, I forgot what. So frum Skeptic, suggested some flavored thing, that looked like flavored seltzer, that had little or no alcohol in it. So I drank a little and it wasn’t bad.

Then when we were ready to leave, Moshe showed us some jokes and stuff on his fridge, and his hooka, and the hanging meet on the ceiling. Then I walked home with FrumSkeptic, and it was really fun talking with her, she told over so many interesting stories. Then later she blogged about them, and it was cool to compare, cause I already knew the stories, and she told over more of the details to me. All in all I had a great time! The time was around 5 and a half hours!

Meetup #2

Recently I had the pleasure to meet up with Bas Melach. I was on the city bus going to the designated place to meet her, when this girl on the city bus drops her pocketbook. If you’ve read my other posts, then you know that I love to pick things up, that I get an enjoyment from it. So I picked up her pocketbook and gave it to her. We were sitting across from each other.

Then she asks me my name, I tell her my name, and she asks if I go to the college that was near the stop she had gotten on from. I told her yes I do, and asked her what her name was. She told me her name and I couldn’t believe it. I asked her if she’s friends with so and so, and she said “yes, how do you know?”. So I asked her, if she’s “Sweety"? so it took her a few seconds to figure out what I meant. She was thinking to herself how in the world would I know that. So I reminded her that a while ago, we used to e-mail each other, and she had told me her name then, and I remembered. So it was cool that I got to meet an unexpected blogger.

Then when I met Bas Melach, I had a great time talking with her. We talked about college, and career plans, and bloggers that we knew before, and stuff she mentioned on her blog. Then at the end she said we need to say some “Torah”. I said “what?”, she said that in Pirkei Avos it says that when 2 people meet, the shechina comes down, so you should say some d’var torah or something. So then she took out her palm and played a shiur that she had from seminary, we listened for like 10 minutes from her head phones. Then the battery died so that ended. But it was a cool experience.

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Top Commenters

Finally, I would like to thank my top commenters for commenting on my blog. I appreciate all that you have contributed, and you have been the fuel that has kept me going. I thank all my commenters, not just the ones that made the top 10 list.

And the winners are:

Here’s an award for being the top commenter:

    

You can put this award on your blog.     

    

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Once again, I would like to thank you all for reading and commenting! I had a great time with this blog, and it really helped me at different points in my life.

At this point I would like to remind you, that if you have a link on your blog roll to my babysitter blog, and haven’t put a link you to my Jewish blog, you can do it now. Because from now on I will only be posting on The Jewish Side.

I will now be changing my blog name to “Jewish Side of Babysitter”

The End!

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Well, not the end, I have an update to make.

UPDATE: I am so extremely very happy to hear that the “Large Family” has had baby #12, on January 20, 2009. 

That makes it 10 girls and 2 boys! Oldest is 17! My precious family that I love so much, I can’t wait to be there for baby #12. Even though I stopped babysitting, I haven’t stopped going to them. I play with the kids for free, because I love them so much and get so much enjoyment from it, that no money can pay for it.

What great timing, I had a feeling it would come at this time, when I was putting up my ending post. Such a great birthday present for me! It’s like I just had a child!

Finally Here: My Blog roll - Blog Reviews!

The post you have all been waiting for! I will go through my blog roll and write a little review of each blog I have on there. My apologies in advance if I leave anyone out. I’m going to go down memory lane now. I really have so much to say, but I see that if I don’t limit what I say, then this post will never be published. I am backdating the post, because I want it to be as if it was complete year of a 100 posts. You’ll notice that toward the beginning I included more links, and the last few blogs I didn’t include any, sorry about that, I was just running out of time.

1. A Death In The Ballroom – This blog I came upon through “Off The Derech”. She had commented a lot there so I decided to checkout her blog. The post at that time was questioning being crazy. I had fun reading her posts and trying to debate with her about Judaism. She had put up a music video from the Disney movie Mulan. I had never seen it before and decided to check it out and then I found my own favorite song from that movie called Reflection.
   

2. A Frum Punk – I forgot how I found his blog already. I’ve actually read all the posts from the beginning, since this blog started after mine and I found it in it’s beginning stage. It was actually fun to keep clicking on it to see if new comments came up after mine. I really enjoyed reading his posts. I like how he uses humor in a subtle way that makes you think he’s actually serious, I call them “Onion” types of posts. My favorite posts: Negiah, “I need a Shidduch”, “Oy, you never visit your mother”

3. Bad For Shidduchim – I have to say this is the first blog I ever read, before I even started blogging. I have to thank my friend Mindy for e-mailing me about this blog. The first post I came upon at that time was about what to wear on first dates. I couldn’t tell what kind of blog it was, if it was serious, funny, or rebellious. I then went through the archives and read every single post. I even printed them out to read over shabbos. She writes excellent posts that are humorous and serious but yet on topics we can all relate to or find ourselves relating to. I had fun counting up my points of how many things I was doing wrong. I’ve actually learned a lot from this blog about shidduch stuff that I would have never known otherwise.
   

4. Bas~Melech Blogs! – I’ve come upon this blog through Bad For Shidduchim’s Blog. She is a true Bas Melach. In HS I remember they encouraged us to call ourselves Bas Melach, to help us remember how to act, like a daughter of a king. I actually remember a few songs about that. The first post of hers I came upon was about Interplanetary science, it was a truly excellent post. Perhaps even my favorite posts, they are about the differences between boys and girl’s mentalities and how to teach them correctly based on this. Later she started writing about her Camp Simcha experiences, and they were truly touching. She gave me such great advice to me, that I will always remember. At the end of it all she said, “You do what's best for you personally and then move on with confidence”. I think that is so important in life. She makes such a great teacher, her students are lucky to have her, and I’m lucky to get educated through her blog.
   

5. From The Experience of a J.A.(C.)P. – She’s one of the few bloggers that I sorta knew beforehand. Back in my myspace days, she would tell me that she had a few blogs and I might have checked them out once or twice, but I never thought much into it. So then I forgot about them. Then years later, I was reading Bas Melach’s Blog and I recognized “Tzipi Caton” so I started reading her blog. She writes amusing stories about JB, and uses humor to write about the trials she goes through because of her previously being a cancer patient. I bought her book “Miracle Ride” and it was one of those books that you can’t put down. I already knew the ending already, so it wasn’t a surprise, but the whole time I was waiting for that ending to come.
   

6. Frum College Girl – A college student with great words of wisdom. She had gone to seminary in Israel and sometimes writes about those experiences. She used to comment more on blogs in the beginning, but then seemed to have taken a break from that. She’s made quite a few interesting observations, also told in humorous ways. Some told in poems, some wrote out seriously, and some strange ones. Her posts are all so interesting, none ever boring.
   

7. Frum Meets Wolrd – Written by a few from girls about interesting stories that happen when they met up with the rest of the secular world in a college setting. They have some really excellent posts there. Some are thought provoking, and some just make you laugh.
   

8. Frum Satire – The most famous blogger that everyone seems to know, read, and talk about. Everyone loves imitating his writing style and what he writes about. He writes way too many posts for me to catch up with. I do have to admit that the ones I read were funny. Although he claims to be PG, I find a lot of times it becomes PG-13 or R. I’ve watched all of his you tube videos which are really great, a truly amazing talent to think of so much to say while ranting freestyle.
   

9. In My Humble Jewish Opinion – She writes thought provoking posts mostly about topics of shidduchim.
   

10. Insanity Now, Serenity Later – A computer programmer, spelling and grammar “nazi”, who loves beer and anime. He writes about programming stuff that barely any Jbloggers understand, that bring him the most hits from Google. He just had a baby and was kind to share videos of his new baby. He talks about the annoying, silly and foolish things that he sees. He also informs us on sales at glatt mart. He likes interesting food.

11. Israel Chronicles – A newly Married girl who moved to Israel and writes about the awesomeness of being in Israel and all the different experiences she’s had there. In addition to America V. Israel comparison posts. She also writes great “Erev Shabbos” posts, it really makes you feel elevated and causes a love for the good feeling Shabbos brings.
    

12. Jacob Da Jew – A cool blogger, you can tell from “Da” name! He likes writing about how us Jews can be better. His posts are short and easy to read.
    

13. Material Maidel – Tons of interesting posts. Also, short and easy to read. Posts of “worth a listen” songs. She’s a frum girl who’s not afraid to talk about “controversial” (tznius wise) topics. One of the few blogs that I have read every single post from the beginning and kept up with! Always entertaining. My favorite Post: Are Romance Novels Assur?
    

14. Mike In Midwood – I remember when he first started his blog, and I looked to see at the blogroll and was surprised to see that my blog was the first and only one up there. I felt truly honored. Later more blogs got linked up of course. His blog has became one of the “group”. He likes to write “frum satire” type posts. He’s got some really good humorous ones. I enjoyed the “If They had a blog” post.

15. Not Just Typical – A humorous blogger who writes in a way that the posts seem like they are facts when really they are made up funny stuff. My favorite post: Help Me- I’m Online

16. Off The Derech – I found his blog from a post Super Raizy made. Once I found the blog, I read all the posts from the beginning and commented on each one. But after a while it got a bit draining to debate so much, so I haven’t commented much. He seems like a nice guy who feels he has been wronged by the yeshiva system. But yet he is still considerate about his family and maintains the good memories of his frum time.

17. On Winds Of Change – The second blog I read. I remember being intrigued by a comment he left on Bad For Shidduchim’s post. So I decided to check his blog out. It has been one long emotional roller coaster reading his posts. He has a really caring heart, who believes girls should be treated better. He wrote some really great stories.

18. One Frum Skeptic – A really great fun and interactive blog to read. She writes about the frum foolishness that she sees. Lots of times I debated with her just for fun, but she is really smart and is strong in what she believes in. My favorite post: Jewish Kosher TV

19. Philosophy and Mixtapes – I’ve seen her comment often on Frum Skeptic’s blog, so I finally checked out her blog. I left one smart comment and was honored by her response “Babysitter - excellent point. I have nothing in my arsenal that can refute it.”. She has written about her pregnancy experience, now that she had her baby, I’m looking forward to her “Mommy posts”. She also writes about philosophy and Jewish issues.

20. Pocketful Of Sunshine – I noticed she commented often on Frum Punk’s blog, but I had never checked out her blog, because I didn’t realize it was a blog, then one day I clicked on it and really liked what I saw. So I read all the posts. She wrote about so many things that I felt I can relate to as a frum Jewish girl. Her blog reminds me a bit of Materiel Miadel’s, in that they are fun easy to read posts by a girl.

21. Roadside Rambles – I first came upon her blog through reading her comments at HaAdam B’Alomo. She always leaves great funny comments. It took me a while to realize she wasn’t being serious, and to take the comment for what it is, but once I got the hang of it, and was on the inside of the joke, it’s been really fun. I’ve been inspired by many of her posts. I’ve linked up to them already in my Jewish blog. When I need some inspiration, I come to her blog.

22. Shorty’s Adventures – I found her blog from a comment she left on a different blog, and I really liked what I saw. She writes long posts with lots of good links. I haven’t gotten to chance to read a lot of her posts. But I truly did want to. She leaves great comments which I am grateful for.

23. Sporadic Intelligence – I first noticed her commenting on End Of World’s blog. Then End of World disappeared and I continued checking out her blog and commenting. I remember reading her posts and feeling I can relate to them. I look up to her for being strong in what she believes in and following it, no matter what everyone else seems to think. She’s a teacher, and sometimes writes about her observations of her students. All her posts have a point to them, sometimes you have to concentrate on that fact in order to find it.

24. The Sabra – Kind of a partner with Rachel as a commenter on HaAdam B’Almo’s blog. She also writes great inspiring posts. She writes about all that goes on in Israel. She once gave me a link to one of her Israel posts, so I can better understand what is is about Israel that is so great.

25. HaAdam B’Almo – I noticed he commented a lot on Frum Skeptic’s blog, but I had never clicked on his blog, because he had a “long Hebrew name”. Then one time I checked his blog out and it was really interesting. He wrote about thoughts on relationships and different Halachic kind of posts.

 

Blogs that I awarded:

1. Beneath The Wings
2. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
3. Here in HP
4. In The Pink
5. Lakewood Falling Down
6. Lion Of Zion
7. Super Raizy

Blogs that have come and gone in my time:

1. A Million Bright Lights
2. End Of the World As we Know It
3. My Personal Bubble
4. Personal Rants Complaints and Probs
5. Shidduchim and other Jewish Things
6. Sweety

Blogs I’m checking out:

1. Conversations In Klal
2. David On The Lake
3. Esther Hadassah’s Blog
4. Faded Glory
5. Frum N’ Flipping
6. Half Shared
7. Harry-er Than Them All
8. It’s UnbeLIPAble
9. The Corner Point
10. Wolfish Musings

New Blogs:

1. Baal Tshuva Slowly
2. DavenedByDeKoisel
3. In My Life
4. RP Blog
5. So I was Thinking…
6. The Secret World of Princess Yuttele 

Additional Blogs by bloggers:

1. Dargot U’ Dargot
2. Places To Go
3. Turquoise, Purple and Scarlet
4. Your Writer’s Notebook
5. Kosher Cuisine
6. My Frum Side

Blogs I plan on checking out:

1. Torat Ezra
2. I’ll Call Baila
3. Ki Yachol Nuchal
4. Life In Israel
5. Ilana- Davita
6. A Mother In Israel
7. Me-Ander
8. Modern Uberdox
9. Am I a Frum Feminist
10. Daughters In The Parsha
11. Delusions of Grandeur
12. Frum Female
13. Frum In South Florida
14. Jew In The Suburbs
15. Jewish mRNA
16. Our Shiputzim: A Work In Progress
17. Shavua Tov!
18. Tales Of An Angry Jew
19. Juggling Frogs
20. A Blog Of Something Different

I think that about covers it all!

Blog Award

A little while back I received a blog reward from ChildIshBehavior for this blog. Now I will award it to the Mommy bloggers that I enjoyed reading. As for the Jewish bloggers, I will award them on my other blog with the reward Leora gave me for the Jewish blog. So now for the winners!

1. Leora – I had seen her commenting on a bunch of blogs for a while, then one day I decided to click on her blog and I found the latest post at that time was about Gravatars, I thought it was a cool post, so I bookmarked it to come back to it later. A while later I thought about the Gravatars and that it would be cool to make one, so I went back to that post and made one. Then the latest post at that time was a colorful drawing that Leora and her daughter did together. I was so impressed with the way they worked on it together and read more of her posts, and then since then I’ve been a steady reader. I love how she spends so much time on her posts with the watercolors for her interactive Parsha posts and her beautiful pictures of flowers and skies.
   
   
2. Super Raizy – After I had first started blogging, I came upon her blog and was very impressed with her Mommy skills, and the way she talked about her children. I commented a few times that she sounds like a great mother, and she really does. I remember her first comment on my blog saying how it’s interesting to see it from a babysitter’s perspective instead of a parents perspective. I remember feeling honored when she wrote a whole post about my spoiled children post and complimented me, although I had to correct her and take away some of the credit for myself, that it wasn’t all my own information, that I had actually done research on it, and yet she still said it was great.
   
   
3. In The Pink – by Hadassah Sabo. I had seen her comment on a different blog and her last name sounded familiar. I knew someone with the same last name as her who had a blog so I clicked on it wondering if that was it. Turned out it wasn’t the same person, but I am so happy I came upon it, cause it’s an excellent Mommy blog. The first post I came upon on her blog was a picture of her with Tweety with a question, I actually thought of a good answer and it felt good to have solved the question. I love how she cares so much about her children, and treats them with such love it’s truly amazing. I am so happy she found her KoD!
   
   
4. Lion Of Zion – I know he’s not really a Mommy, but given this, I thought he wouldn’t mind it again and that it would be funny. I am truly impressed by the way he talks about Jr. He sounds like a great parent and Jr sounds like an adorable child. He writes great entertaining stories about Jr’s adventures and yet is still responsible that Jr act like a good little boy. The post about Jr’s first day of school was really touching, to see it from the father’s perspective, and the child’s.
   
   
5. Ricki’s Mom – all I can say is wow to this one! It continues to amaze me how she is able to discipline Ricki to behave, in such smart ways that actually work. It’s great to see the pride and love she has for Ricki. I came to her blog through a comment she left on Bas Melach’s post about camp Simcha. I had commented that it must be really hard on them to take care of these special children. Ricki’s Mom had suggested I take a look at her blog and see how these children are really the same. The first post I saw impressed me, it was an innovative way to get children to remember things with key rings of words or pictures on it. There were other cute innovative ideas like a little mail kind of method between mother and child. I enjoy reading her posts, the many posts she writes.
   
   
6. Mrs. Lakewood Falling Down – she doesn’t really have her own blog, while her husband does. But she left great comments on my blog that I just had to check out her husband’s blog. Just my luck when I check it out, she had actually written a post herself. I was truly impressed with the post she wrote about buying a dress for her daughter online and how the people were so caring, and how she then thanked them. It’s not very often that you see people thanking the service people with such appreciation, I was truly touched.
   
   
7. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – I haven’t read this blog so much, but I do plan on reading more of it now. I remember the first post I had come upon I was truly impressed by, it was a picture of a nice fancy table set for Shabbos, it looked so royal looking and I thought it was great how she sets her table so nicely, it really adds a respectful aura to Shabbos. Then recently I saw a picture of her chandelier which her kids decorated with dreidels and chocolate coins, I thought that was really cute. It’s great how she decorates things to give the kids more of a feel of the specialness of the Yom Tov, so that they feel they are participating in it.
   
   

Thank You all for your wonderful blogs!

And for being the wonderful Moms/(Dads) that you are!

Memes

I figured I would combine different meme’s into one. So I searched my feed reader to find the memes that I had planned on doing and one of things I found was “Where did the word "meme" come from anyway?” and I thought that was a good question, so I decided to do a little research. I found that there’s a whole website dedicated to meme’s and it had a little information about the source of a meme. So the first Meme I will be doing is a Book Meme which I found from Margo. I’ve seen a lot of Facebook statuses doing this meme or a meme similar to it recently. The second meme is one that a lot of bloggers have already done, I wasn’t officially tagged in it, but Leora gave me the opportunity to do it.

Book Meme

Here are the rules:
Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST. Tag five other people to do the same.

“R’ Menachem Mendel of Kotzk asks: Why did Judah worry only about Jacob’s distress? What about Benjamin’s wife and 10 children – why was Judah not worried that they, too would die because of their pain? The Kotzker explains that we learn from this verse that a child does not experience suffering for a parent to the extent that a parent suffers for a child’s pain.”

That came from “Something to Say”, by R’ Goldwasser, the book I use to look up things to say on the Parsha. Being as Tomorrow is Friday that was the closest book near me. This came from page 56 like the instructions said, and from the Fifth sentence, it’s from Parshas Vayigash. I’ve never heard this before, and it was completely new to me. After reading this I thought to myself, that it makes sense for it to be like that, cause normally parents die first, and that’s why it’s so cruel when Natzi’s threatened to kill the parents children in front of the parent’s eyes.

Sevent Facts About Me

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people (if possible) at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

1. One of the reasons I love the Large family so much is because I see them as my role models and I always wanted to have 10 kids. It became my dream, and I imagined it as such a reality that I even wrote about it in a paper for my English class in college, and my Professor commented back on it: “wow that’s a lot” (I actually checked the paper for the exact words)
2. I wear 3 necklaces every day under my shirt. I used to have them all out, but then people would comment on it, so I just keep it under, and then when I need a necklace I take one out. I wear all 3 because they are all precious to me, and have sentimental value. One is a little heart shaped silver necklace that I got from the large family when I turned 12 or 13. The other is a silver necklace with my name in Hebrew from Israel that my twin brother bought me when he went. The third necklace is a silver small Magen David that my mother bought me at a fair one time. I like how it’s used as a Jewish symbol, so I like to wear it as an identity thing. (o, and I used to also wear 3 bracelets, but then my grandmother told me to take them off for shidduch purposes)
3. I like sleeping on the floor, I think it’s more comfortable, and there’s a lot more room to roll around. Although I do sleep on a bed, but when we go places and they don’t have enough beds I like to sleep on the floor.
4. I don’t like Wednesdays. Wednesday seems to have always been my bad luck day. Everything bad happened to me on a Wednesday. Won’t go into personal details… But one involves a dog, one involves a orthodontist and one involves a van. Plus in school Wednesday’s used to have a bad schedule.
5. I love Chinese Food. When I was 12 years old and my father got honored at my old shul, the dinner was in a Chinese restaurant, it was my first time eating at the place, and they had a limited menu. One of the dishes was Sesame chicken. It was my first time eating it, and after that I was hooked, and every time we went out I would order Sesame Chicken. Before that my mother used to order for us the birds nest which was fun to eat, or meat with vegetables. Then one time when I was order with my father he said over the wrong thing and instead of getting meat with vegetables, it was beef lo mein. That was my first time having lo mein and after that I loved it and would always order it. So then it became a trade off between lo mein and Sesame Chicken.
6. I went in a helicopter for a ride. The summer of 10th grade my family went to Niagara Falls. While we were there we saw this helicopter place where you can ride around in it for 10 minutes. So my mother, my sister and I went for a ride. I got to sit next to the pilot. Before take off they snapped a picture. Then we took off and it was a great ride, we had these headphones on to block out the sound of the motor and so that the pilot could speak to us and give us a tour of what we were seeing below. When we would dive forward it was a really scary feeling. You feel as though you are going to fall through. The pilot talked to me to make sure I was okay, and I said I was okay. Then when we landed I felt all dizzy and my ears were popping. We saw the pictures they had taken, and my father bought the picture of the helicopter with me and the pilot and a punch of water fall pictures as a border surrounding the picture. We also got little certificates, that said we had rode in it.
7. I don’t like Pizza. I feel like I’m one in a million, when everyone talks about pizza and how much they love it. As a matter of fact I don’t like anything dairy, except for ice cream and chocolate and other OUD stuff where you don’t actually see any milk or cheese. Although I won’t eat Cheese curls cause it has the word Cheese in it. I won’t eat Ketchup potato chips cause it has the word ketchup in it. I used to love pizza too, back when I was two. But then after the ear doctor said I have to stop having dairy for a little bit, I was never able to go back on. My uncle tried bribing me to have a shnops cup of milk, and then he would buy me a doll house, but it didn’t work. Even now I don’t have milk and sometimes I get nightmares that I’m drinking milk.

Now, instead of tagging 5 people for the first and 7 people for the second. I will just tag 12 people who will then get to choose if they want to do either one, both or none.

Tagged: BasMelach, EsPes, FrumCollegeGirl, FrumPunx, FrumSkeptic, Jessica, MaterialMaidel, MikeInMidwood, NMF#7, Shorty, Tembow, TooYoungTooTeach.

10 Blog Post ideas in Draft

Ok, so I’m counting out how many posts I have left and I realize that I don’t have enough posts to write about all the different ideas I had wanted to write about. So I figured I would just make one big post with a little paragraph on each idea, they will obviously not be thorough, so if you have anything to add on, feel free to do so.

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Question: Is the Parents Room Just for Parents?

By my house the parents room isn’t just for parents, more often it becomes the family room where we all gather. On Shabbos mornings as soon as we wake up we go to our parents room and tell them good morning and do some talking. As a kid I remember we had fun jumping on their beds, we would jump from one bed to the next and look in the mirror while we did so. But yet the door did have a hook and eye lock, and there were times when us kids weren’t allowed in. But then if we knocked on the door, then it usually opened for us. At one house I was by I saw the parents had a combination lock on their bedroom door. I thought that was funny and a bit extreme, it seemed like they were in a whole other apartment that way.

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Sleepovers

At what age is a child old enough to go on a sleepover? and should they be left alone or attended?

I remember going on a few sleepovers. When I was 11 years old I went to a girl in my class’s house for a sleepover. I had brought a sleeping bag over, cause I liked to use it as a blanket. At home we figured out that if you put the sleeping bag on the top of the steps and go inside you can sit and slide down the steps in a bumpy fun way. So when I was by the girl’s house I decided to teach them how to do it so they could have some fun too. Thinking back at it now I would never let kids do it for fear that they would topple down and hurt themselves. So anyways, I put the sleeping bag on their steps and went in with my friend and we had fun going down. Then her little little brother wanted to have some fun too. So he asked if he can go in the sleeping bag with me and have a ride too. So I let him in and we went down a few times. Then their mother tells me that I can’t go in the sleeping bag with him. I didn’t understand why not. That was my first introduction/lesson to the rules of Yichud.

Then other times when we had sleepovers we would play truth and dare, and something secretive always came out.

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Getting Lost

At what age can you send children on errands alone?

I was 8 years old when I went with my brother to the bike shop to get our bikes fixed. I found the way there, we gave in my brother’s bike to be fixed and were then on our way home. When my brother suddenly had a brilliant idea “I remember a shortcut” he said. So I trustingly went with him on his “shortcut” route. After a while I realized we were lost. I remember land marks that I had passed that signaled my being lost. So we got to a unfamiliar place and I was afraid so I started crying. My brother tried to be all brave about it, but it must of been hard on him since I was crying. Then a African-American lady sees that I’m crying and she asks what’s wrong. I told her we were lost. So she called the cops from a pay phone at the corner. (It was the days before cell phones). Then the police comes. The police man took my brother and dumped him in the trunk of the car, this frightened me at the time, but I guess they were just trying to play around and lighten the mood a bit. Then they took him out of the trunk and we both went into the car. They drove us home, and I remember my mother sitting down with us, giving us a drink and telling us we can’t leave the house again that day. Happens to be, now I’m always by the place I got lost, because that’s where my college is.

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Fake Vs. Real

What do you think children prefer fake stuff or real stuff?

You’d be surprised but most children will be happier with the .25 ring from the machine than a real ring from the Jewelry store.

When I was younger my mother signed me up at the y to take gymnastics. I’m not sure why, but she offered me a reward if I go. I had remembered going to a girl’s house where she had a fake blow dryer and hair accessories, and I had enjoyed playing with it. So when my mother asked what I wanted as a prize, I told her a blow dryer. So what did she do? she bought me a real blow dryer! I was a bit disappointed at that, cause it wasn’t like the one my friend had. But I didn’t say anything, and pretended I was happy about it. Later on though I actually used it and was happy that I had my own real blow dryer!

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Medicine

At what age should children learn to swallow pills?

All my life I had always had liquid medicine. I didn’t like the taste of chewable ones and I never tried swallowing. So long as they had a liquid version I was fine. But then came the time when I was 16 and I got a root canal, and that really hurt, and the dentist gave me pain killers for that. The pain killers however only came in pills to swallow. I was sitting there on the dentist chair, thinking to myself, “O, no, I don’t know how to swallow!”. With my dentists persisting, I took the pill put it in my mouth and behold I was able to swallow it! I was so surprised and proud of myself that I had this look on my face, that I couldn’t believe what I had just accomplished. Although after that when I tried swallowing pills again it was much harder and didn’t go so easily, so I guess the first time was luck.

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Shirt Buttons

Ever noticed that boy and girl shirt buttons are on opposite sides?

I always wondered why that was. I guess it’s to make it easier for the mother doing laundry to tell which white shirts are boy shirts and which are girl shirts. Although most shirts obviously have different styles, so the side of the buttons shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

While I’m on the topic of clothes and different boy girl ways, I decided that tucking in a shirt by girls just doesn’t look good, and I think it’s even untznius. Although by boys I think tucked in shirts are fine and even look more put together. By girls though I like tucked out shirts better, or at least a jacket or sweater on top of the shirt.

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Exercise

One day I was outside and saw three little kids outside walking very fast. I asked them what their up to, and they said they were exercising cause they didn’t want to get fat. So they jogged around the block a couple of times. They were all into it and serious about it, I thought it was really cute. They made a schedule and a couple of times a week they would jog around the block and do exercises.

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Playing in the street

Do you think children should be allowed to play in the street?

I’m always surprised when I see young children playing in the street, whether it’s a ball game, or just running back and forth. I can’t believe the mother’s let their children play in the street like that. It scares me all the time, and whenever I see my younger siblings playing around in the street I tell them they have to go out of the street. Unless the street is closed down I think it’s unsafe. I tried explaining to the kids that they shouldn’t be playing in the street, but they say that they will be careful, and they will watch out for cars. I tried explaining that nobody gets into an accident on purpose, but they don’t understand it.

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“It’s a Piece of Junk”

I find many times when children get frustrated with a toy/object and they can’t figure out how it works, they call it a piece of junk. They put the blame on the object. Lot’s of times it’s just that they didn’t read the instructions/directions. Or they didn’t take good care of it. So instead of admitting its their fault, they call it a piece of junk hoping to get some sympathy to get a new one or not get blamed for what they had broken.

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Cute kid voices

Adon Olam

The first kid singing had a really cute voice. Before this song he sang “Halleli Elokayich Tzion” and instead of saying “L” he would say “w” so it was so cute to hear him say “Hawewi Ewokayich Tzion”. Anyways, the second boy, is a kid I used to babysit, and the first kid was his cousin. The second kid really has a great voice, not sure if you can tell from this video.

“The Wheels on the Bus” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”

This kid is 4 years old, she actually just turned 4. She is one interesting little kid, her voice sounds so sweet you would think she's such a well behaved kid. But she's actually very tough in her negotiations! She threatened that she won't be my friend if I be mean to her and tell her she has to go to sleep. But then the next day when I go over to her she begs me to sit next to her and for me to hold her and everything.

Embarrassing Babysitting Moments

Reflecting back at my year of Babysitting I started remembering different embarrassing moments. Even though I got embarrassed from them they still make fond memories. A few I have already posted about. About being surprised when the kids school bus driver opened the doors and offered to give me a ride with all the other little kids. About being questioned on who babysits who, in that everyone thinks I’m so young. Now I will reflect back to the top embarrassing stories that have happened.

1. I was babysitting by the Rav of my Shul’s family. They were going to a wedding, and the younger 2 kids were staying home. So after babysitting, the Rav drives me home. When he gets to my house, he presses the automatic door opening button, and the sliding door doesn’t open. I’m wondering what happened, and I tried to open the door myself, I got it open a little and was able to come out. Then I realized I was stuck to the car door and the car door had jammed. So the Rav comes out of his seat and checks to see what happened. I had been wearing a long skirt, and apparently it got stuck in the car door. I was mortified, I tried pulling my skirt free, but it was jammed. The Rav then was able to pull my skirt free. In a way it’s a good thing it was a long skirt, because it was only the extra part below the knee that had to be pulled free, so nothing showed. But yet if I hadn’t worn a long skirt then it probably would never have got stuck. So after that, every time I see an automatic sliding car door, I think about what happened, and I’m glad my car door isn’t automatic.
   




2. So I always go over to the large family on my block almost every shabbos to play with the kids. It’s the one family I truly enjoy the kids, so even though I stopped babysitting, I get to still go over there on shabbos and enjoy them. They have all ages, and for some reason a bunch of them got into their head that I need to learn how to dance for when I get married in the future, so they decided it was their job to teach me. So I had all the little kids urging me to get up off the floor from playing with the baby and to hold their hands and dance. This was in the living room, with their mother sitting on the couch watching. I tried getting out of it, but they were persistent, so I gave in and did a little dancing with them, going in circles, and then one by one with each of them. It was really embarrassing, so then I told the kids that I will just watch them dance. They said ok, and relieved I sat back to watch them dance wildly. Then their father came home for Shalosh Seudos, and was wondering what they were doing, and they said they were helping me practice to learn how to dance for my wedding. I was mortified again. After that when I came home I told my mother how I can’t wait to invite them all to my wedding, that I would have so much fun with them, and that I love them so much. My mother said that I probably won’t get to invite all of them, because it would be a late night and it wouldn’t work out for the little kids. I still hope that I would be able to invite them all, and I would truly miss them. So far no wedding coming up so I get to enjoy them!
   




3. This next one I sort of once posted about but not completely. So one of the mothers I babysat by enjoyed teasing me about how I’m a college student, but yet I don’t know so many obvious things that are standard knowledge. It happened to many times for me to remember, each time although I knew it was just for fun and wasn’t meant as an insult or anything, it was still embarrassing, especially when it was in front of other adults. Once it happened because I mixed up Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Another time it was because I didn’t know what the Gulf War was about and where the gulf was. Another time it was about why we were at war in Iraq. Then all these other history, current events and geography stuff. I just never enjoyed studying it, so I didn’t pay much attention to all these details, so I didn’t know the answers. Although sometimes for some weird reason I would purposefully make myself look foolish to see her reaction, and I would laugh about it. Whenever that happens, I feel like a little kid all over again, as if I’m testing the parent.
   




4. This last story hasn’t happened yet, but I’m imagining that I will be embarrassed if and when it happens. So last year the mother of the triplets gave me a key holder thing as a birthday present, it was really nice and I put her key and my key on it. I would use it ever day to open her door to let her kids in after I picked them up from the bus stop. Then once I finished babysitting there at the end of June, I asked the mother if I should give her the key back and she said that I should keep it in case she needs me sometime to get the kids again and to bring them in the house. So I kept the key, all was good till one day I get to my front door and reach for my keys and find they are gone! I started to worry what happened to them, I figured maybe when I was taking out my metro card they slipped out of the pocket. I retraced my steps a bit and didn’t find anything. I figured when I go to school the next day I’ll look for them. So I hadn’t completely despaired and the next day I had hope I would find the keys. I checked in the hallway and classroom I had been at that day, I checked the side walk, I walked around campus with my eyes on the floor hoping to see something shiny, I checked the city bus stop. But I didn’t find anything, so I then gave up hope in finding it. I had another copy of my house key made, but I didn’t have another key holder, so I just never used it and would always go in through the side door. I was a little bit upset that I lost my birthday present since it had sentimental value. I was afraid to call the mother to tell her that I lost her key. So I just never called her, and she doesn’t know. Since now I stopped babysitting, I can get out of the uncomfortable situation by having an excuse that I’m not babysitting anymore, but then I wonder if she would ask for her key back. Or am I supposed to just call her anyways and tell her that I lost her key? The thought of getting embarrassed by losing her key is what is stopping me from telling her.

“How To Lose A Babysitter in 10 days”

In other words, how to get fired from babysitting in 10 days. Thank you Child Ish Behavior and Frum Punk for the inspiration. So the last attempt to say good bye was unsuccessful and I figured it would be fun to write up a post on how to get fired from babysitting. I also have to thank the kid I was babysitting tonight for giving me some more inspiration, she asked me to read her an Amelia Bedelia book. Then I thought to myself, that’s perfect, I’ll use Amelia Bedelia tactics, I’m sure those are fire worthy.

Tonight I went babysitting by a different family and when I told her that Tuesday will be the last time I will be babysitting for her for ever, and for everyone. She had a bit of a better reaction. She said “o, because you have finals coming up?, I totally understand”. So I said “yea, I have to concentrate on school work more”. So then she said “what about our motzei shabboses?”, So I said, “sorry, no more”. So then she said “After you finish this semester will you be able to?” So I said, “As of now no, but we’ll see”. So she was much more accepting of me finishing babysitting (Thanks Jessica for the word choice, and Thanks Frum Punk), but she still had a sad face and still tried to grasp any bit she could. She was really nice about it, not at all like the other.

Day 1

• Don’t change the babies diaper.
• Let the kids eat all the junk food
• invite friends over and have a party with loud music
• let the kid stay up till the parents come home

Day 2

• Let the kids color and paint the wall
• let them play outside without their coats on
• bring them to a neighbors house without telling the parents, so that they come home to any empty house

Day 3

• Go to sleep and let the kids run around wild
• let the kids go in the parent room and put on “dress up” clothes
• try on the mothers jewelry

Day 4

• Let the kids use black markers and scribble up their homework sheets
• Talk on the phone the whole time while ignoring the kids
• make prank calls by calling every contact listed on the emergency contact list

Day 5

• say “yeah, right, whatever” to any instructions the mother gives
• come late to the babysitting job
• let the children watch TV the whole time
• Let the kids use the computer and print out pictures using up all the ink and paper

Day 6 - Frum Punk

• Driving lessons.
• The roof: Your slanty playground!
• Learning to cook.
• How to cut up mommies clothes into even better clothes!

Day 7 - Lion Of Zion

• raid the alcohol cabinet
• let the kids drink the alcohol with you
• teach the kids bad words
• hit on the husband
• hit on the wife

Day 8

• leave the kids alone, and go out with friends - Mike In Midwood
• threaten the kids if they don't go to bed - Muse
• Read the Communist Manifesto to the kids as bedtime reading - Katie

Day 9

• after the kids are sleeping, and the lights are off, taking a flashlight and hold it under your chin and make boogeyman noises at the top of your lungs!! - DavenedByDeKoisel
• If there's a kid you don't like, then pinch them all the time - Tr8erGirl
  

Ok, now this is harder than I thought, I can’t come up with another 5 days worth of bad stuff to do. But if you have ideas, you can comment, and I will put it up with credit to your name. I had the idea to use Amelia Bedelia tactics, but I can’t seem to think of any, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Remember, this is all in humor, no babysitter should be doing these stuff.

Good Bye Babysitter!

Well almost Good Bye. I had decided that it has come to a point where I can no longer babysit. I have to spend more time studying, since school is a top priority right now. So tonight I went babysitting, planning on telling the mother that it’s the last night. So she tells me that she will be home for sure before 11. Then It turns 11 and they are not home, finally 11:30 they come home. Normally I wouldn’t mind if they come home that time, but if you say you’re going to be back earlier, then the minutes seem to pass by slower.

Anyways, after 2 hours of babysitting, they come home and the father gives me a 20, and asks if that’s good. So I tell him I owe him 4 dollars. Then I break the news, I said, but I can’t babysit anymore. So they turn to me and their like “why not?”. I said “I have to concentrate on school work”. So then the wife is like “You can’t do this to us, you have to come once a week, we need you”. I’m thinking to myself "EXCUSE ME!”. The kids are sleeping anyways, I’m not doing anything, why do they need ME to come to watch their sleepy kids, why can’t they just get anybody? There has to be another babysitter they can start hiring.

I hadn’t wanted to say anymore than that, but since I saw they weren’t giving in, I said “But really, I’m starting to fail my classes, I need to study more”. So the father says “what are you studying” I said “accounting”. So he said “I could help you with that”. I said “But that’s not the problem, I just need the time to study”. So then he’s like “The house is quiet here, you can study all you want”. Some people just don’t get it. I know they really need their nights out, considering their partnership marriage. But why does it have to be at my expense? Why can’t they just get someone else? whey are they desperate to keep me?

So then they ask, “Is it just us that you won’t babysit by? what about the A’s B’s C’s and D’s?” I said “I’m stopping altogether, not them either”. “Their like no, you’ll have to make time, we need you once a week”. Such audacity, I can’t believe it.

I had decided earlier already that I’m going to stop babysitting altogether because of this family, she makes it impossible for me to say “no” and I just can’t take it, so I figured if I say that I’m stopping altogether then maybe she would take it better, but apparently not.

Anyways, I’m almost up to my blogversary, so I’m going to keep the blog going a bit longer, till I reach my 100th post, which will also be the same time as my birthday, and the end of this semester, so lots of good stuff coming up.

The Babysitter’s Monetary Policy

The magic word that everyone understands and loves – Money. We all know money can’t buy you everything, but yet we value it’s importance for what it can buy. We all need money to survive, and to live a comfortable life. However, many people are so enthralled with the concept of having money that they want more and more money to save up, just to say they have x amount of money. Then there are some that will do anything to be rich, they will marry a rich guy to live a luxurious lifestyle of shopping therapy.

Any form of collection are things that make children happy but seem to be insensible expenses. In my days it was Hi beary stationary. It has then gone to crazy bones, and now I hear it’s napkins. Some will view these collections as a waste of money, after all if you look at the item for it’s physical worth, it doesn’t seem to be as high as the price it costs. But yet because it’s a collection it costs more. Children gain so much pleasure from collecting items. They get a sense of accomplishment from the more they collect. Parents can use this to their advantage by letting the child get their collectors items as a reward. The children obviously value it, so they will agree to the reward system. It also teaches the child how to be responsible, to not loose what they have collected, and to trade it wisely. Come to think of it, collections teach them bartering skills, and financial skills.

My view on how to go shopping, is to buy what you need and that’s it. I feel it’s a waste of time and effort to go from store to store to save the .10 or .15 you will save. If you need something you buy it at the store your at. Also, I don’t see sales as a way of saving money, but rather wasting money. Unless you need the item then it’s a great thing that it’s on sale. But if you don’t need the item and you happen to see the sale sign and decide to stock up on it, you have to evaluate your action. Look at the item again, see if it will actually be used or not, and then decide if it’s worth it. It could be that it will just sit in your fridge for days and no one will touch it. The kids may be used to a different product, and they will be left hungry if you buy the sale item they don’t like, and don’t buy the item you know they have liked in the past.

I think children should be aware that things they buy cost money, but I don’t think they should be taught too much on financial skills. There is no reason why a child should be left with guilt to buy something they need, because they are afraid it cost too much money. At the same time, you don’t want to cause your children to become money hungry. If your always talking about saving money, and how you shouldn’t spend money. Then the children will expect money by their birthday presents and will want more money than what they are given, and won’t ever be happy. Both cases will cause unhappy children. So you have to know the right balance to make children aware that things cost money, but not to lead them on to either extreme of being money hungry or self conscience about asking for things they need.

Adopted Children

There is an elderly couple who got married late and were therefore unable to have children, so they adopted. At first I hadn’t even known the children were adopted. They had a little 3 year old at that time when I first knew them, and I thought it was their natural child. Then a year later they adopted a 2 year old, and everyone was telling her congratulations on your new baby. I was thinking to myself “wow, that’s fast”. When I realized that it was an adopted child. They adopted them from some country far out. The second one was from Guatemala I think.

I’ve babysat by them a few times and noticed some differences. For one, since they are their children by choice they treat them much better, and are much better parents towards them. Sort of reminds me of BT’s when they become frum. Because they had felt something was missing they decided to take action and do something about it to better their life. So they obviously see the children as a gift and treat them well. Also, there’s a certain familiarity you naturally have with your own children that would cause you to get annoyed with them and not appreciate them. When it’s adopted children you respect them more.

So last night I was babysitting there, and right away I was looking at all the kids arts and crafts hanging up on the walls and the toys on the floor, and the toys in the bathtub. It seemed strange for it to be in a house of an old couple, but yet it made the house look so much more inviting, warm and friendly. The other times I had babysat there the kids were sleeping, so I would just do my school work. This time however, the kids were in bed, but up.

So the 4 year old comes out of bed and starts taking books out of his bookshelf and using them to build a house. I thought he was pretty smart in how he built it, perhaps a future builder. He barely talked, kept saying the word “book”. I helped him out a little and he was open to my ideas, so I bonded a little with him. Then after he had used all his books, I asked him if he wants to show me his room. (I always say that to get the kids to go to sleep, it’s the first step). So we go in his room and he continues being busy with his books, so I ask him if he wants me to read him a book. So after going through a bunch of books, he picks one for me to read. It was a version of “The Three Little Pigs”. It was a bit different and put more emphasis on the wolf and the 3rd pig, but the beginning was the same. So when I read the parts where the pig would answer “no, no, no, not by the hair of my chinny chin chin” and the wolf would answer “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow you house in”. He would look at me and start laughing. So I was glad that he enjoyed the book. So then after I read the story he put away his books and went to bed. I told him I’m proud that he was a good boy, and he smiled.

Then the 2 year old started screaming and crying. The father had told me that he was teething so he was going to see the dentist the next morning. The father said that if the kid starts to cry then I should take him out of his crib and hold him on the chair and he will stop crying. So for a while I just patted the kids back in circular motions to see if it will calm him down before I take him out. It worked for a little bit, but then he started crying again, I asked him if wanted to come out, and he stood up. So I took him out of the crib and held him, then I sat down on the chair with him on my lap. I was so surprised that he just sat there not crying or making a sound. I’ve never seen a kid like that, that just sits still waiting for you to say or do something. Then the kid eventually fell asleep on me like that, so then I transferred him to the crib.

Meanwhile, the father had been calling and left messages. I hadn’t gone down to the phone since I was busy with the kid. Then when I went down I saw 9 new messages, I’m like wow, that’s a lot. So here is where parents of adopted children are different. They are very protective of their kids. So he wanted to make sure everything was ok with them, so on the next time he called I picked up and told him that the kids were now asleep. I noticed they didn’t have caller ID, and I think their the only ones I know that still don’t have caller ID, I see it as such a necessity because I’m used to it. Anyways, back to how he’s protective of his kids, before he left he told me that the younger kid likes to put his blanket on top of his head, so after he falls asleep I should go up and lower the blanket.

What’s also interesting, is that even though the 2 kids aren’t siblings the older one treats the younger one like his brother, he will help him out and be patient with him. But so far I haven’t seen them fighting.

“Partners” in Marriage

To me marriage is seen as a partnership between husband and wife. Where both husband and wife are equal, and none plays “Mommy” or “Daddy” to the other. But yet by one family I babysit by, it continues to surprise me how the wife is always bossing the husband around and treating him inferiorly. If one would rule over the other I would expect it to be the husband. For some reason I feel it’s more acceptable for the husband to boss the wife around, than the other way around.

The first time I discovered such a case where the wife rules the husband made me feel bad for the husband. They were both going out and the wife had a hard time zipping up her boots. So she orders her husband to get down on the floor and zip up her boots. When he couldn’t do it because her foot was obviously too big for the boots. She yelled at him “just do it”. So he painstakingly tried zipping it up, and he finally got it up. I thought perhaps she was just in a mood or worked up for some reason. But then it seemed to happen again and again.

The wife bought a cozy coup car for her little girl and asked her husband to build it. He was following the instructions and putting it to together. He seemed to be working very hard on it. I commented asking if the instructions were hard to figure out, since he had mixed up parts a few times. So then his wife said “No, it’s not hard a 3 year old could do it”. That made me feel bad for the husband again, that he got embarrassed in such a way. So I told him that I’m sure it was confusing instructions.

Then last night I was babysitting by them again, and the husbands mother had been hit by a car and was in the hospital. So they were going to visit her. The wife had made vegetable soup that she was bringing a long with her. So she put it in a bag and told her husband to hold it. When he took the bag by the handles, she said “no, from the bottom”. So he holds it from the bottom. Then she asked me to taste some of the soup, I said “no, thanks, I don’t want to taste it”. So then she asks her husband to taste the soup. So she holds a spoon out to him and he tastes it. So then she said “how was it?” and he said “it’s fine”. So then she said “You’re supposed to say it’s great, that it’s better than your mothers soup”. So then the husband said “lets please not talk about my mother right now”. So then he said “let’s get going”, then she said “You’re supposed to say thanks for making the food and for coming”. So then he said “you know that already” and she said “You just want to go so you can get home already to go to sleep”. The wife had told me a bunch of times that she doesn’t get along well with her in laws, and that her kids never see them. Anyways, I thought it was insensitive of her to talk about his mother that way, when she was in the hospital and he was worried about her.

But then I’m thinking perhaps it’s just her personality to be like that. She called me up yesterday morning asking me to come over and babysit while she brings her son to school since there was no bus transportation. I had just woken up. So she says to me “You can come over in your pj’s”. I’m thinking to myself, does she actually think that I would come over in my pj’s? I was thinking that she just says that as if to make herself feel better for calling me last minute.

Beforehand, we had arranged that I was going to babysit there last night, so she said she was going to call me when she wants me to come over exactly. So then when she calls and asks me if I can come over, I said ok and that I was coming. Then I go over to her house and I find her not dressed yet. Ended up being I had to wait a half hour with them till they were ready to leave, so I was wondering why she had called me over so soon. She had been wearing a shell, and at first I felt that it wasn’t tznius, that I shouldn’t look. So I stayed in the living room while she was in the kitchen. But then she called me over into the kitchen to ask me to taste some of the soup. Then I realized perhaps she was serious about me coming over in Pj’s, that she thought it was perfectly ok.

So then she orders her husband to go get her sweater. So he takes one from the chair and gives it to her, and she says “no, not that one, the one upstairs”. So he goes upstairs and gets her sweater and brings it down to her. Now I don’t understand why she couldn’t just get her sweater herself, why does she make her husband into her servant?

Scary Dogs

I’ll start with a little background. When I was in 7th grade I was coming home from the library, when I reach a corner that had a dog on the porch. The dog was loose, and as soon as I saw it I did the “smart” thing and ran. Of course the dog started running after me. So I was running across a 6 way highway with the dog chasing me at my skirt. It was so close and I was petrified. Running away from the dog became more important than saving my life. I literally didn’t see the cars coming, all I saw was the dog. As I was in middle of the highway, a car stopped and blocked the path of the dog. The driver offered me a ride, but since it was a stranger, I declined. But thankfully for that stopped car the dog turned back around and went back to it’s house. I finished running across the street, and made a complete circle to get to my block, and refused to pass by that house again.

That story obviously didn’t start my fear of dogs, but it was a big factor in my continuation of fearing dogs. The next incident was even more traumatizing since it involved me being responsible for other children, and led to me questioning my capabilities as a future mother.

I’ve been trying really hard ever since to get over this fear. I would judge a dog based on the vibe it gave me, if it was truly a scary dog, and required crossing the street. If there were other people with me, I would let them be my guard and actually walk past the dog. I would think of myself as so grown up for actually walking next to a dog. But I still hadn’t come over my fear, and wouldn’t take chances with certain dogs that I knew would run around and bark. So every day when I come home and pass by this one dog in a gate, I would go out of my way not to be next to it.

Today, however, as I was going to vote, I was with my brothers, I saw the dog there, it seemed to be lying down and it was quiet, so I figured it can’t hurt to walk by the gate. So I walked by it, I saw my brother turn around to look at me to make sure I was okay, and I gave him the sign that it was okay. Then when we got to the end of the gate, all of a sudden I heard barking. It was such a surprise, that I jumped up grabbed my brothers arm and yelled “Omg, Mommy!”. I knew it was okay, but yet I was so startled, that without thinking I reacted like that, as if it was a natural instinct. I used to react by saying “Hashem!” but somehow over the years, I guess it changed to “Mommy”.

Three Guests Meme

This Meme is from Jessica. Thanx Jessica for tagging me in the meme. It gives me a great way to write about 3 things in one post! I don’t know who else wants to do memes, but if you want to feel free to do the meme. I’ll tag Margo since I know she has done a meme before and may want to do it. I'm also tagging Sabra since she said thank you for the tag. 

3 Guests Meme:
For one day you have your choice of guests for meals; one guest for breakfast, one guest for lunch and one guest for dinner. These people may be dead or alive. Please pick one person for each meal and explain why you chose them.

Breakfast: I would chose one of the mothers I babysit for. Since she seems to always want my company. Today she called up and told me there’s a sale at some beauty salon to get a hair cut for 18 dollars. So she wanted to know if I wanted to come along with her to get a hair cut. That she would get one and I would watch her kid, and then she would stay and watch her kid while I got a hair cut. She was willing to pay for the hair cut too. Now this sounds like a great offer. But yet it sounded strange. I told her I would but I just had lots of stuff to do. I was babysitting somewhere else in the morning and didn’t get home till after 1:00. She wanted me to go with her at like 4:00. I have a lot of HW due for tomorrow and I was planning on doing it today. She was upset that I couldn’t go with her. So to make up for this time and all the other times when I wasn’t able to spend time with her, I would have breakfast with her. It would be the perfect meal in the morning while she would be eating breakfast I would just sit and listen to what she has to say. I would maybe have some cereal or nosh. This way it wouldn’t ruin the rest of my day too so I would talk with her in the morning. O, and in case it sounds like I would be talking to her unwillingly, it’s not. I really do enjoy talking with her, she always has something interesting to say and it’s always a lot of fun. She’s like the one adult that I can talk to as if she is a friend.

Lunch: I would chose my mother. I love her so much and she has been such a great mother to me, I’m so lucky to have her! I would pick lunch because it’s in middle of the day, by the fact that we both take off time from our schedule to meet makes it special. We would be undisturbed and get to catch each other up on what’s happening. My father recently found some letters I had written to my mother when I was younger, and I couldn’t believe I had written such things. It gives me a mushy feeling to read it. So I know back then I loved my mother too and I plan on always appreciating her!

Here’s the 2 letters I had written to my mother:

Dear Mommy, I know how you feel about the brace. Because I feel quite bad that she has to go through all of these things and would you mind if I could hug you and kiss you.

 

Dear Mommy, I hope you’re going to like your birthday invitations. Well listen out for this one. I always wanted for it to be your birthday so I could make surprises for you. And so I also could give you birthday presents. And I hope your going to have a fun time. And your going to love when you see my test tomorrow.

Dinner: I would choose Frum Skeptic. I love reading her blog and commenting back and forth with her on different posts. She always answers back and has so many smart things to say, it’s always fun debating with her. It was great talking with her at the Shabbos meal and I would think supper would be great too. The way she describes Russian food it sounds great, and supper is the perfect time to have such a meal. I would also choose supper because then we could see how long into the night the conversations last, and it would be really cool. FrumSkeptic has such great interesting stories that I would love to hear.