I've started sitting for a boy on fridays when he doesn't have school. He's in this awesome program where they only go four days a week. Lucky duck. Now mpst of the time I babysit as needed for a few hours and it's never been a permanent thing. Hopefully I can be "better than daycare" for this boy. Now because I don't feel right using names this second grader shall be known as EL. I am also, in his presence, not a baby sitter because he is NOT a baby! I am kid siting! But really I got to thinking and with EL bouncing off the walls I'm really kid-sprinting...or kid herding!
So today I started out the day with him simply getting up of his own accord (I've not seen many kids do that.) and turning on the TV to watch cartoons. Unless I'm emergency sitting and have absolutely nothing planned, TV has become my last resort. (Movies are ok but just randomly watching tv endlessly is not my idea of child care.) So I allowed him to watch one cartoon. The cartoon of choice: Beyblade! If you were a 90's kid or parent you know about beyblade. A hyped up version of spin tops made of metal and plastics and of course a plastic arena for the most serious of battles! Of course in the cartoon they use some sort of energy or whatnot. So I immediately used his love for beyblade to my advantage with homework! I told him that he had to start his homework right after the show and as soon as that was done I would battle him in beyblade. It was very hard not to laugh at how serious he was about this battle!
Homework actually took a long time. EL is easily distracted and would stop mid-sentence to tell me about something random during the language arts portion of homework. I have to say, though, I'm a very patient person. We can spend as long as it takes getting homework done and even stop every other sentence to talk about other things. Of course he is very good at math so while I would start explaining how to work something out he had the answer written down...
But enough of that homework. Let the battle begin! So beyblade is, like I said, a glorified spin top and if you have a nice one made of metal or even some that have little wings pop out when touched then it's pretty easy to win. EL has a billion beyblades so we had a fairly good battle in which I was crushed in a hopeless defeat. Obviously the kid has way more experience than I do.
He wanted to play video gameson his Nintendo 64 (Ah nostalgia!) But the few multiplayer games he had got old after a while...(and frankly I lost too quickly to be any kind of challenge for him.)
So then we actually moved on to my original plan for the day. Building a fort! EL lives in a house that provides plenty of light so getting a dark fort was next to impossible. Still, we stripped the blankets off his bed and hung them from the top bunk, turning the bottom bunk into a fortress. He got really excited when I told him that he was now the Captain of our fort and it was imperative that he choose the perfect movie to watch. Of course what good is a fort if you can't eat in it? I was really worried about him spilling on the bed (regardless of his promises not to) so I designated myself drink holder, and we ate while we watched Spy Kids 2 on Netflix. I'm pretty sure I dozed off every few minutes because every time I opened my eyes we were a few more minutes into the movie than when I'd closed them.
After the movie in the fort we sort of...ran out of things to do! I was trying very hard not to turn on the TV, since we still had two and a half hours or so to go. And then...out of the toy closet, I emerged with...plastic...swords... O.O Well didn't that just spark up a few ideas. When I was taking Karate, I trained with a Katana (a curved Japanese sword) and basic stick fighting/defense. I pulled out two plastic swords and we took to the backyard where we engaged in yet another battle, only this time, I was the one with the advantage. I taught him a fighting stance, and some basic sword moves, and we practiced/played for about an hour before coming back in for Lunch and then we went straight back outside.
His Mother came home shortly after and EL was very proud to demonstrate his newlyfound sword skills. Let's hope he uses his power for good. I think next week I'm going to prepare more than enough to do ahead of time and that way I won't have to worry about running out of things to do.
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