Twins Tuesday: Adventures in Babysitting

Welcome to another Twins Tuesday, except this one won't be just about the twins.

Last weekend I spent most of Friday and all of Saturday babysitting, which means I spent the night at the house. I have done this before, but it's always an interesting insight into what parenthood might be like.

Patrick, 4 and Olivia, 6

Before I go any further, I would like to introduce you to Olivia, who I will henceforth refer to as Blankie because even though all the kids have a fascination and dependence on blankets, hers is the strongest. I don't usually have Blankie anymore, because she started Kindergarten this year and is at school most of the times I'm at the house. However, when I'm there on the weekends I do get to see her.

The other one in the picture is Patrick, we'll call him Batman because, well, he loves Batman. He started preschool this year, so I don't see that much of him anymore either.

Suffice it to say that when you are "working" for over thirty-six hours straight, you start looking for things to do. It's not that the kids necessarily get bored with the usual activities I do when I'm there for only a few hours at a time, but I certainly do.

So off to the Internet I went for a little inspiration. Yes, I did check out Pinterest, but I also looked at a few blogs that specifically discussed some form of childcare.

The first blog I found was The Childcare Blog, and I found several ideas there. I do wish there were more pictures to describe some of the activities and give better information to readers, but overall, it was a good place for me to see another person's perspective.

I like The Childcare Blog because, even though it is several years old now, a lot of the information still translates. Also, the blog has a really great list of topics, so it was very easy for me to navigate and find exactly what I was interested in.

My weekend, though long and stressful when not enough sleep was had by all, was fun for me. If you read my other post about naps, you know that I'm not very good with sleeping in unfamiliar places, but I would be lying if I said I didn't feel comfortable in that house, so it works out well.

Just for fun, here are a few more pictures from this weekend of the other three:

                 

What do you think is a good source for finding things to do while babysitting? And how would you handle a long weekend babysitting? Tell me in the comments.

-Lyndsey

Twins Tuesday: Fetch

Happy Tuesday everybody. Wait... you're tell me it's not Tuesday? I've missed an entire day? Whoops; I will reevaluate my internal calendar later. (I blame daylight savings.)

Now that I've gotten my head on straight, on with the story.

Mr. Mischief has decided to go through an animal phase. Sometimes he pretends he's a puppy, and sometimes it's a cat. It's quite hilarious actually, especially when I'm sitting on the couch reading to the twins, and all of the sudden he looks at me and goes, "Meow!" It's adorable.

I've become relatively used to him doing this, and I'll even accept him crawling around and "barking." But I was thoroughly surprised last week when he started playing fetch with me.

Mr. Mischief playing fetch would be one thing, but the fact that he... well, you can just watch the video.

Let me give you some background before you do, though. Before I got my phone out to start filming, he brought me the giant Lego. It was in his mouth; then he dropped it in my lap. He's taking his puppy routine very seriously.

This cracked me up so much I had to share it. It's just one tiny reason why I love these guys so much.

Well, until next time, what animal imitating stories do you have? Leave them in the comments.

When Little Man Cries

Ever since Little Man became one of my charges when he was about a month old, I would sing to him when he cried, or I had a particular song stuck in my head. That's what my mom did for my sister and me, and music has always been a huge aspect of my life, so it just came naturally to me.

This is not to say that I didn't, or don't, sing to his siblings, but they're older and they better understand that I'm not that great of a singer. Little Man however, doesn't seem to mind if my voice is a little off key. In fact, he seems to really like it when I sing. It usually takes about ten seconds of me singing for him to calm down.

Before I show you this video of Little Man's reaction to me singing, I'd like to explain why he's crying. I had just brought him down from his nap and sat down on the couch with him in my lap. For his siblings, this would not be something to cry about, but Little Man really likes me to stand when I hold him, and gets upset when I sit down. So I sing to him.

Please forgive both my singing voice and the weird choice of song; it was the only one I could think of at the time that I can sing from memory.

It's a weird song to sing to a child, but like I said, it was the only one I could remember verbatim. It was written by Stana Katic; you can watch her performing it much better than I can in this video.

What do you guys think? Did your parents sing to you? Do you sing to your kids? Tell me your stories and remedies in the comments.

-Lyndsey

Twins Tuesdays: Choo Choos

I am again late with my Twins Tuesday, but I hope you will forgive me.

Last week I was able to spend some time drawing with the twins. As a teacher I looked at drawing as an opportunity to further develop their fine motor skills; as two year-olds, they see it as a way to scribble and fight over the crayons.

On this particular occasion though, Mr. Mischief decided he wanted to draw a Choo Choo. This is understandable because of the amount of times he's brought his Doodle Sketch to me, repeating the words "Choo Choo" over and over until I drew one.

Wanting to use any moment I could as a teaching moment, I immediately starting drawing with him, using the hand over hand method. This method is used quite a lot with older kids who have special needs, such as in this video, but can also be used with preschool kids just learning to read.

It was amazing for me to see how both Mr. Mischief and Gurlicue responded to the exercise. Mr. Mischief, who really just wanted a picture of a Choo Choo, was really easy-going and let me do most of the work. Gurlicue, who really takes pride in all of her drawings, on the other hand, was a little more resistant to my guidance.

I could tell she wanted to be independent, but she also wanted to draw the Choo Choo right, so she allowed me to help.

Both pictures turned out brilliantly though:

I know this isn't really a funny story post, but I found the exercise really interesting, as a future teacher. What do you guys think about hand over hand? Take my poll and let me know what you think.

As always, I'd love to hear anything you guys think about this topic, so comment with your opinions or stories.

-Lyndsey