On the morning we first went to the new babysitters,we spent the whole morning playing with her youngest son,who was just a toddler.My sister and I considered him a baby,and would likely have elected not to play with him at all,had we not been a captive audience.
My mother walked us up to the babysitters house on the first day.It was mid winter and quite a cold day,snowing a bit and there were icicles growing on the fronts of all the houses,from where it had recently thawed,then refrozen.The house we were going to was not far up Sumner street,not even all the way to Hastings street,but we were not allowed to walk there ourselves at this point.
We were greeted at the door by a woman of about thirty.She was not a very big woman.I suppose,though all adults seemed big to me at the time.She was long and slim,tall but light boned,and she had short,dark,curly hair.a cigarette dangled from her lips and she held an ashtray in her hand,an ongoing habit of hers as I was soon to discover.this was the first sign of her being different,as our mother did not normally smoke.At times she would accept a cigarette when offered one,but,as a rule she didn't smoke.In fact,her parents considered women who smoked to be indecent.But our new babysitter smoked,more or less continuously.
Once we had entered,the woman told us what to call her.That is,she told us her first name.but our mother insisted we address her by her surname,proceeded by Mrs.In all,she seemed like a nice enough woman,and she told us a bunch of things we already knew about her.Her husband was away most of the time,because he drove truck.In fact,he hauled aviation fuel. Occasionally he would be home,and,she told us when he was we were not to go near the truck.we would also have to be quiet,as when he was home,he would be sleeping.She told us about her four children,only one of which was in the house when we arrived.The other three would be home at lunch time.She told us their names,and that the oldest two would most likely not want to be bothered with us because we were so young.We could go play with her son for the morning,in his room.If we had any questions or problems,we could find her in the kitchen.
Her kid turned out to be about half my size and maybe three years younger than I was.He had fine,blonde hair and wore coveralls.In his room,we discovered a large toy box,filled with things that had little or no interest to me,because he was really still an infant.My mother had anticipated this,and allowed me to bring one item from home to play with.that turned out to be an action figure of a caveman,holding a boulder in both hands,high above his head.That one item I guarded jealously,and it turned out to be a good thing.
This kid turned out to be a bit of an entertainer.The only idea I had of babies came from my little sister,and she really was not that much of a baby in comparison to myself.But this little kid knew that he had an audience of two,and he seemed determined to make an impression,to draw us into his circle,to make us laugh.for a while,all was well.We took everything out of the toy box,and there were a lot of things there that we never had at home.most of it was his,so,as I said,none of it was all that interesting.I did discover a square,red thing with a couple of knobs on the front.To me it looked something like a television.It turned out to be something called an Etch-a-Sketch,and I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what it did.
But as the morning wore on,things took a turn for what turned out to be for the worst.The lady left us pretty much to our own devices,only sticking her head in the door once or twice.We could here her in the kitchen,talking on the phone,but as things seemed to be going well,we had no need to find her,and,as we were being quiet,nobody was squabbling she must have decided all was well.but all was not well.Her kid found his way to the head of the bed,which happened to be right by the window.In no time at all,he had slid the window open.It was warm in the house,so it seemed sensible to me that he would let in some air.On the other hand,I supposed that he really wasn't supposed to open the window.It was something we were not allowed to do at our house.
Letting in fresh air was about the farthest thing from this kids mind though.Once the window was opened he got down onto the floor,found a toy,a stuffed animal of some kind,climbed back up onto the bed,and pitched it out the open window.now I knew he wasn't supposed to do that,I could think of no reason why that sort of behavior would be good.So I would tell his mother.well,I would wait a bit,and then tell his mother.Because what he was doing struck me as being kind of funny too.My sense of humor was also developing,and he would turn around and smile,looking for our approval.So I would allow myself to be entertained,then I would tell his mother.Giggle! As fast as that first toy was gone out the window,and we had rewarded him with a quiet chuckle,he was on the floor again,finding another toy,and it too was gone out into the snow.Giggle,giggle! Down onto the floor.up onto the bed.Out the window.Giggle! In about a half hour everything that had been in the toy box was outside,under the dripping icicles in waist deep snow.All the dolls,Legos,a jack in the box,a bunch of lettered blocks,picture books,even the Etch-A-Sketch.my sister had brought a stuffed monkey with her,and when the time came,she just passed it over to him,and out it went.Giggle! The only thing left in the whole room was my caveman,an empty toy box and the bed.Giggle,giggle,giggle.The show was over,but I'd really enjoyed it while it had lasted.
Finally the kids mother called out from the kitchen."Almost lunch time.Clean up the room,put everything away neatly." now that was going to be a bit of a problem,wasn't it.Well,not for us surely.We hadn't really done anything.But now was the time to do the right thing,so I went out to the kitchen,found our babysitter and ratted out her son.I also thought that this might get the biggest laugh of all.Giggle!It really was funny after all,so she would be really impressed-just before she got mad.I really couldn't have been more wrong.She blew off a bit of steam in the direction of her son.Giggle,giggle! Then she turned her ire upon us.He might have tossed the entire contents of his room out into the front yard,and we might have done the right thing,but why did we wait.Our omission turned out to be not going to her right after the first stuffed animal got evicted."He's just a baby," she said,"you've got to expect he will do things like that,but you two should know better." I guess likely I did know better,giggle,giggle,giggle,but really it was pretty darn funny.Still,I'd only been at the sitters for one morning,and I'd not even managed to get to lunch time before finding myself in trouble.
We had tomato soup for lunch.The other three children arrived home at noon,and were promptly dispatched out into the snow to retrieve everything that had been tossed.To say they were less than thrilled about that was a bit of an understatement.The snow was quite deep,and cold water was dripping off the roof,and they protested about things not being fair as they each made a couple of trips to gather up the toys.All this while the sitter huffily provided a running commentary on how we had let her son toss everything out.the oldest girl,maybe twelve,turned out to have quite a mouth."Little bastard." she hissed under her breath,followed by something to the effect that she would toss us out the window if she had to clean up our mess again.
My mother walked us up to the babysitters house on the first day.It was mid winter and quite a cold day,snowing a bit and there were icicles growing on the fronts of all the houses,from where it had recently thawed,then refrozen.The house we were going to was not far up Sumner street,not even all the way to Hastings street,but we were not allowed to walk there ourselves at this point.
We were greeted at the door by a woman of about thirty.She was not a very big woman.I suppose,though all adults seemed big to me at the time.She was long and slim,tall but light boned,and she had short,dark,curly hair.a cigarette dangled from her lips and she held an ashtray in her hand,an ongoing habit of hers as I was soon to discover.this was the first sign of her being different,as our mother did not normally smoke.At times she would accept a cigarette when offered one,but,as a rule she didn't smoke.In fact,her parents considered women who smoked to be indecent.But our new babysitter smoked,more or less continuously.
Once we had entered,the woman told us what to call her.That is,she told us her first name.but our mother insisted we address her by her surname,proceeded by Mrs.In all,she seemed like a nice enough woman,and she told us a bunch of things we already knew about her.Her husband was away most of the time,because he drove truck.In fact,he hauled aviation fuel. Occasionally he would be home,and,she told us when he was we were not to go near the truck.we would also have to be quiet,as when he was home,he would be sleeping.She told us about her four children,only one of which was in the house when we arrived.The other three would be home at lunch time.She told us their names,and that the oldest two would most likely not want to be bothered with us because we were so young.We could go play with her son for the morning,in his room.If we had any questions or problems,we could find her in the kitchen.
Her kid turned out to be about half my size and maybe three years younger than I was.He had fine,blonde hair and wore coveralls.In his room,we discovered a large toy box,filled with things that had little or no interest to me,because he was really still an infant.My mother had anticipated this,and allowed me to bring one item from home to play with.that turned out to be an action figure of a caveman,holding a boulder in both hands,high above his head.That one item I guarded jealously,and it turned out to be a good thing.
This kid turned out to be a bit of an entertainer.The only idea I had of babies came from my little sister,and she really was not that much of a baby in comparison to myself.But this little kid knew that he had an audience of two,and he seemed determined to make an impression,to draw us into his circle,to make us laugh.for a while,all was well.We took everything out of the toy box,and there were a lot of things there that we never had at home.most of it was his,so,as I said,none of it was all that interesting.I did discover a square,red thing with a couple of knobs on the front.To me it looked something like a television.It turned out to be something called an Etch-a-Sketch,and I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what it did.
But as the morning wore on,things took a turn for what turned out to be for the worst.The lady left us pretty much to our own devices,only sticking her head in the door once or twice.We could here her in the kitchen,talking on the phone,but as things seemed to be going well,we had no need to find her,and,as we were being quiet,nobody was squabbling she must have decided all was well.but all was not well.Her kid found his way to the head of the bed,which happened to be right by the window.In no time at all,he had slid the window open.It was warm in the house,so it seemed sensible to me that he would let in some air.On the other hand,I supposed that he really wasn't supposed to open the window.It was something we were not allowed to do at our house.
Letting in fresh air was about the farthest thing from this kids mind though.Once the window was opened he got down onto the floor,found a toy,a stuffed animal of some kind,climbed back up onto the bed,and pitched it out the open window.now I knew he wasn't supposed to do that,I could think of no reason why that sort of behavior would be good.So I would tell his mother.well,I would wait a bit,and then tell his mother.Because what he was doing struck me as being kind of funny too.My sense of humor was also developing,and he would turn around and smile,looking for our approval.So I would allow myself to be entertained,then I would tell his mother.Giggle! As fast as that first toy was gone out the window,and we had rewarded him with a quiet chuckle,he was on the floor again,finding another toy,and it too was gone out into the snow.Giggle,giggle! Down onto the floor.up onto the bed.Out the window.Giggle! In about a half hour everything that had been in the toy box was outside,under the dripping icicles in waist deep snow.All the dolls,Legos,a jack in the box,a bunch of lettered blocks,picture books,even the Etch-A-Sketch.my sister had brought a stuffed monkey with her,and when the time came,she just passed it over to him,and out it went.Giggle! The only thing left in the whole room was my caveman,an empty toy box and the bed.Giggle,giggle,giggle.The show was over,but I'd really enjoyed it while it had lasted.
Finally the kids mother called out from the kitchen."Almost lunch time.Clean up the room,put everything away neatly." now that was going to be a bit of a problem,wasn't it.Well,not for us surely.We hadn't really done anything.But now was the time to do the right thing,so I went out to the kitchen,found our babysitter and ratted out her son.I also thought that this might get the biggest laugh of all.Giggle!It really was funny after all,so she would be really impressed-just before she got mad.I really couldn't have been more wrong.She blew off a bit of steam in the direction of her son.Giggle,giggle! Then she turned her ire upon us.He might have tossed the entire contents of his room out into the front yard,and we might have done the right thing,but why did we wait.Our omission turned out to be not going to her right after the first stuffed animal got evicted."He's just a baby," she said,"you've got to expect he will do things like that,but you two should know better." I guess likely I did know better,giggle,giggle,giggle,but really it was pretty darn funny.Still,I'd only been at the sitters for one morning,and I'd not even managed to get to lunch time before finding myself in trouble.
We had tomato soup for lunch.The other three children arrived home at noon,and were promptly dispatched out into the snow to retrieve everything that had been tossed.To say they were less than thrilled about that was a bit of an understatement.The snow was quite deep,and cold water was dripping off the roof,and they protested about things not being fair as they each made a couple of trips to gather up the toys.All this while the sitter huffily provided a running commentary on how we had let her son toss everything out.the oldest girl,maybe twelve,turned out to have quite a mouth."Little bastard." she hissed under her breath,followed by something to the effect that she would toss us out the window if she had to clean up our mess again.
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