Taking Gleek and Patches to public places is an exercise in balancing disturbances. Every minute I have to balace the disturbance caused by a particular behavior with the disturbance caused by attempting to quell a particular behavior. I never have the option to cause no disturbance. No wonder I opt to stay home from things so often.
5 thoughts on “Kids in public”
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Oh yes! And people wonder why! They’ll complain that they don’t see you that often and then complain when they do because your kids are being energetic.
(sorry. It’s one of my hot buttons.)
I’d like to start a babysitting co-op where someone else watches my girls one Saturday a month so I can go out and do stuff and I’ll watch their child(ren) another Saturday that month.
Babysitting swaps?
That reminds me of a Baby Blues strip where Wanda’s talking with Darryl about babysitting …
W: “Yolanda and Bunny and I talked about starting a baby sitting CoOp.”
D: “Oh?”
W: “Yeah. We would each pick a day of the week where one of us would watch all the kids and the others get a few hours off to run errands.”
D: “Sounds good to me. Why don’t you?”
W: “Because one day a week one of us would have to watch all the kids”
(paraphrased from memory, so don’t hold me to the exact wording)
Re: Babysitting swaps?
Heh. Yeah. There’s that bit as well. But you see I can handle that. Sit watching them while I knit. And if the kids are old enough then I can just put them in a play room and not worry and just clean up the messes afterwards.
I’ve actually made arrangements like that before and had it work really well. In fact I’ve currently got a swap going with another mom so that we can volunteer in our older kid’s classrooms. Once the swap is running it is wonderful to have the time-alone that I can count on. Making calls, finding a compatible mom, and getting it going is hard. I always feel like I’m begging “Please watch my kids!” (Which I am sort of)
Oh aye. That is the rub isn’t it. One doesn’t want to be the first to ask. One wants to find another mother like oneself so the kids know what’s going on and you don’t have to deal with “But, she said we could!” or the questions about things that you don’t want to deal with yet or deal with in a different manner.