Adventures In Babysitting

This past Saturday, my little cousin, Sydney, had big plans to spend the night with me. Sydney is the daughter of my first cousin, Brittany, and she is four years old. Brittany has graciously agreed to let Sydney start spending Saturday nights with me so I can take her to church with me on Sundays and this past Saturday was to be our first adventure. Justin decided to stay the night as well and so it was a packed house in Five Points with two adults, a child and a dog. 

My dad was cooking fish on Saturday at 5:00 and so Brittany brought Sydney over to my parents house and after eating dinner we headed to the house. We played Hi-Ho Cherrio and played with my new Spirograph and colored and watched The Wizard of Oz among other things. Sydney only ate a few french fries at dinner and got hungry during the night so I cooked her some chicken fries from the freezer which Justin discovered were also tasty and then more chicken fries were cooked. this being the technology age, Justin had his head poked in his computer for most of the night and Sydney was engrossed in my Kindle. Welcome to 2013.

I went to bed about 10:00 and Justin and Sydney stayed in the den watching TV and eventually fell asleep in there. About zero dark thirty, Justin brought Sydney into my room. She had woke him up coughing and he had given her some water and then put her in the bed with me. Bless her little heart, she just coughed and coughed and coughed and then was wheezing and even had a hard time catching a breath at times. Justin and I, being raised on whiskey as out cough remedy, both had the same idea and I put a dollop of honey with a splash of whiskey in a mug and warmed it up. I told her to drink it really fast because it was going to taste bad, but I'm sure the smell was more than she could handle because then she started crying. We called her mom and then Justin, bless HIS heart, took her home at 1:15 in the morning.

We did the best we could but it just wasn't good enough for a coughing child. These days child protective services probably gets called in when you give a kid whiskey for a cough so maybe it's a good thing she didn't drink it.

At any rate, our first go wasn't too successful; I think she would have been okay through the night if she hadn't started coughing. At any rate, we are going to try again this coming weekend and hopefully we will be much more successful in our childcare adventures. I say our because I'm pretty sure Justin will be joining us again. Whatever the case, I'll be sure and let you know how it goes.