Get a Job!

Saturday night Bailey had her first "official" babysitting job. By official, I mean that she was picked up and taken to the person's house and stayed there by herself with the child she was babysitting. The little girl she babysat is around 7 or 8 years old and is a fellow Girl Scout. We know her parents through Girl Scouts, so we were comfortable with Bailey babysitting for them.

We went through a bunch of scenarios with Bailey during the day on Saturday to get her ready for the night. She is also CPR certified, so we were just reviewing things. One of the things we discussed was that she should not text her friends during her babysitting time since this could be quite a distraction.

During "peak" times, Bailey has been known to receive several texts per minute. Very distracting.

So, around 6:30pm, Bailey was picked up and taken to the "job site." I texted Bailey at 7:30pm just to see how she was doing. I didn't get an answer. This is very unusual. So, I texted her again - still no answer. I try calling Bailey's cell phone and I didn't get an answer. Now I'm starting to get worried. Although we "know" this family through Girl Scouts, I don't really "know" them all that well. I've never been to their house, for example - although the mother has been to mine several times to pick up Girl Scout stuff.

I then go to look up the phone number of the house she is at and the number that is listed on the internet has been disconnected. I didn't think to get a phone number for the house because I know Bailey's cell number. So, I call back the number that the mother had called me from that morning. It was obviously a cell phone and I got her voice mail and I left a message.

Luckily, around 8:15, Bailey called me. She had put her phone on silent so that she wouldn't be distracted by any of her friends texting her and therefore had not heard my texts or phone calls. She was fine and doing well. All was good. Whew!

She got home around 9:45 and earned $25.00 for the night. She was quite pleased with herself and hopefully she can do some more babysitting for this family again.

On a related note, Bailey changed her first diaper last Wednesday. I'm on the board for the local Girl Scout council and once a month we have a meeting. Bailey goes with me to watch any kids that have to come with their mother's for the meeting. Bailey earns "service" hours towards Girl Scout awards for doing this service, and she loves to be with the kids. Last Wednesday there was a 9 month old girl who attended with her mom. Bailey watched her for most of the meeting and the mom was sweet enough to let Bailey try to change her diaper. The mom came and talked to me after the diaper changing and she said that Bailey did very well. Bailey held the little girl for most of the meeting and afterwards she told me that the girl was not at all like the "flour baby" that she had to carry around for a week for a school project. The school project was to carry a 5 pound sack of flour dressed up as a baby around for a week. If at the end of the week the sack of flour was not damaged, you got a good grade. I'm pleased to say that Bailey's flour baby was not only not damaged, but that it also became tasty cookies.

Bailey wanted me to tell a certain sister of mine who's expecting that she has now had one practice round on changing diapers and that she is looking forward to her next opportunity to change some more.