Reality!!

A lot has happened since my last post about babysitting my nieces this weekend. We had plans to take them to the zoo and I was getting more excited as the days grew closer. Last weekend my in laws came over and apparently told my husband that they would rather all of us go to the zoo because they don't think we can handle the girls by ourselves. This upset me and pissed me off. My husband of course got mad and just said whatever apparently we are not good enough nor capable of babysitting them either. I was full of mixed emotions on this, at this point I just wanted to throw my hands up and say forget it, we do not want to babysit then. I knew that a week before the occasion was not a good time to say find a new babysitter so K and I complained about it to ourselves and then got over it. I posted on my fb page inconspicuously that maybe you should let us try because we can handle it. We may not have our own children but it is not by our choice so let us have fun with the only little ones we get.

I don't know if they saw my post or thought about it some more or what but then we were given the chance to take them to the zoo sometime last week. Really?!?!?!? we already made other plans to show up later in the day and nor did I plan financially at this time. So that just made us even more mad but we just said oh well. Maybe we will get to take them to the zoo later. I was upset because I wanted to do something with them, I just didn't want to sit at the house, I wanted to have fun with them.

Friday night my SIL called to find out what time we were planning on coming over. She said the girls were excited and was making comments that indicated, to me, that the girls thought we were going to the zoo still. I asked my husband if he told his brother that because of their initial decision our plans changed and he did. I didn't want to upset/disappoint the girls because of this. He stated that he told him that since we were coming over late in the day obviously we weren't taking them to the zoo. Then I wanted to take them to the zoo but my husband was painting his friend's car so that was completely out of the picture at that point.

I get there on Saturday to get the low down of everything. The girls seemed to be excited and my littlest niece kept asking where my husband was. Then she just kept repeating it, seems they were excited for us to be there. I showed up by myself because the hubby was still in the middle of painting when it was time to leave. Which worked out because I had to be up at 5 am Sunday and didn't want to be out too late, this allowed me to drive home for bed while he finished watching them. The first "mistake" I made that showed I had little idea what I was doing was to put my niece's diaper on backwards!! How embarassing and just perfect when we have been fighting to say that we can handle them and we are infertile not invalids. Way to go and screw that idea up. I could only imagine what was going through their heads, what did we do to our children. At least I realized my mistake and didn't ask questions!! I don't even remember the last time that I changed a diaper, probably when she was under a year old so at least a year or so. Not to blame me completely, I have done this many times before just a little bit rusty!! So they finally left and it was just me and the girls, dun dun duuuuun. LOL Actually it was going fine. The littlest was playing with me, the oldest was watching TV, so I was on to a good start. I was thinking this isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I of course didn't want to just sit around all night with them bored out of my mind. We had fun though and it wasn't as boring or terrible watching a 6 and 2 1/2 yr old like I thought it might be.

My niece tested what she could get away with, I was told that if she picked up her sister she was to go to time out for 6 mins. Well I thought all would be good until I constantly had to tell her to be nice to her sister or stop making her mad. I thought, she is testing me to see what she can get away with because I kept saying do it again and you will be in time out but I never followed through. See I got this parenting thing down, I am not as dumb as I seem to be!! Ha ha!! So she got time out and of course she didn't like it but I didn't have to fight her to go to her room or anything. After that we played, she decided she was going to "fix" my hair. That was a blast, she kept putting hair clips in and then would pull them out when it didn't look good!! They were enjoying it though and that is all that mattered!!

The hubby finally got there and I thought we were gonna go out for dinner but he talked the girls into pizza and decided to stay in, we planned that afternoon to take them to the park to play and feed the ducks. So we all ate, got ready and headed out for some fun!! They really seemed to like feeding the ducks, my husband showed them how to feed them from their hand so that was fun too!!

It gave me the opportunity to see how amazing of a father he would be, and how much fun it would be to have our own. Here comes some sadness and hopes again for my own. I didn't cry but just enjoyed the time and thought about how much I would love to be able to do that someday with my own little ones. I got lots of pictures and sent some pics to their parents to show them they were having a good time. Although they never called once to check on them so I guess they didn't feel to unconfident in our adult skills. This also wasn't their first time going out on their own so I am sure leaving them with someone else isn't such a big deal as when it is the first time.

Next we went over to the play ground equipment, the littlest one was having a blast going down the slide, and she was not shy and talked/played with the other little kids around there too. The oldest one wanted to show us her skills on the monkey bars. Next we went over to the swings, let me tell you about some scared times. The oldest was swinging so high it was scary. This is where my husband and I are made for each other, he isn't scared of anything and of course I am the scared/motherly type that wants to protect, especially since this was our first time babysitting and they were already questioning our ability, I didn't want to bring back a hurt kid.

Got lots more pics then moved back over to the play ground equipment, we let them play as long as possible though it wasn't as long as I would have liked due to our late start to the evening. I like to think they had lots of fun. We stopped to get ice cream on our way home, the littlest one was pretty wore out at that time. We were playing the radio and singing at the top of our lungs. We definetely we no professional singers but we were having fun. We took the ice cream back home, and I didn't think about ice cream/sugar and waking up. The littlest one got somewhat of a second wind but unfortanetely it was almost bed time for them. I brushed their teeth and gave them their vitamins and off to bed we went.

I didn't think the littlest one was going to fall asleep, she didn't want to go to bed at first but I read her a book and she laid there. I told the oldest one, whom I thought was really going to struggle with going to sleep that she could read to me. I wanted to find out what my hubby was doing since I seemed to be the only one doing the tucking in. I found him asleep on the chair, poor guy was tuckered out after a long day!! I tried to get a picture because I thought it was funny he was out before the little ones!! We went in and let the oldest read her book, felt like the longest book ever, especially since they were supposed to be asleep by 10 and it was fast approaching 1030 since I had to get the little one to sleep read to her and then listen to the oldest read too.

It was cool to watch her read and to help her too. She is going into first grade in the fall and I have known her since she was 2 1/2 so it is neat to watch her learn/grow. We definetely don't get to see them or do things with them enough and the time is quickly fading away.

They were both tucked in and ready for bed and I headed home. All in all it was fun and brought the sadness of wanting to be a mother to the surface that much more. Got me thinking about how I wish we could try the next steps again but financially it is hard and of course it isn't going to happen on it's own. I think those feelings surfaced for my husband also. It was nice to be reminded of how well we work together as a couple and how great we will be as parents some day!!