An Incident

A guest post by Caleb

So last week I had to babysit Gwen and Madelyn, I have to do this pretty much about once every week because my parents feel its necessary to have foot massages every Sunday night, and then about once during the week. So this babysitting started off pretty much the same as any other night, I had to get the two sisters to eat. This started off well, we ate some soup with meatballs, and bread with Nutella, because that’s just how we roll. So after Madelyn ate a large piece of Nutella covered bread, she decided she didn’t like her soup, to be more precise, she decided that she didn’t like half of her soup.

So this brings us to about 3 minutes later as Seth ran out the door to go to one of his meetings for one of the trinjilion things he’s involved in. Madelyn has a bowl of soup without any meatballs because she has eaten all of them because that was the only part she liked. On the other had Gwen has eaten everything but the meatballs, because that was the only part SHE liked. So I’m still eating right, I’m enjoying my meal. I have now finished my meal, and would like to go watch “The Office” in my room, but being the redoubtable babysitter that I am, I wasn’t going to just leave these two eating (or refusing to eat) at the table. So I told them to quickly finish up so they could go play. The both bluntly refused, stating that they did not like their meals. So I, being the punctilious babysitter that I am, told them that they both had five minutes to finish their meals, or they could make their way to bed. So I got out my phone, and set the stopwatch for five minutes.

Gwen and Madelyn, not your average crass young girls, quickly realized that they both had disliked the portion of their meals that the other one had liked, and proceeded to try and quickly switch bowls and finish off their partners’ meal (Gwen eating Madelyn’s non-meatball portion, and Madelyn eating Gwen’s meatballs) So I promptly moved Gwen to the other side of the table, too far away from Madelyn to switch bowls with her. This all happened within 20 seconds or so, so they still had plenty of time to eat half a bowl of soup each. So I encouraged both girls to eat quickly so they could go play, but both girls straight up refused to eat their food, resolving that they would just take the punishment of going to bed. I saw their wit in this instantly, and stated that “going to bed” did not mean lock yourself in your room for the night and just play in there, but that you were in bed with the lights out. This was little motivation for either. After telling Gwen about four times that she liked meatballs, she tried one, and after realizing that it was actually quite good, proceeded to gobble up the remainder of what was left in the bowl. Madelyn was not so easily swayed. She sat in silence for the rest the five minutes, irrevocable in her decision to not touch her food, and take the punishment. So, at the end of the five minutes, I sent her off to bed, and cranked up some music while I did the dishes in the kitchen with Gwen tagging along behind.

While in the kitchen, Gwen, (always trying to look better to me than her older sister), announced that even if mom makes meals she doesn’t like, she eats them anyway, because she wants to get strong. I, being her athletic trainer, agreed, “I do the same thing! How do you think I got these muscles?”, to which she responded, “Yea but its not fair because you drink protein.” This statement made my night. Imagine a six year old Asian girl, drinking protein shakes to try to gain muscle… seriously imagine it. Right now. I’ll wait…. Okay good.

Now back to our story. Loud sobbing could clearly be heard from Madelyn’s bedroom. But I, being the austere babysitter that I was, ignored it, because Madelyn had made her decision, and I was not going to let her off easy. After about ten minutes, Gwen, being the loyal younger sister that she was, reported to me that Madelyn was out in the dining room on the computer. So I calmly walked out into the dining room, and reproved Madelyn for coming out of her bedroom, reminding her (still calmly) that by not finishing her dinner, that she had made the decision to go to bed for the night. This dialogue continued for a good ten minutes, Madelyn started sobbing while she was arguing, told me that she did not like me at all, and some other things which I took as drivel, and things transgressed quite quickly, until it was to the point were I was quite pissed off. I had sternly told Madelyn, “Go to your room right now” and had her response be a flat, “No”. For any of you parents out there I’m sure you know better than I how frustrating it can be to have your authority be ignored. Side note: I have been trying quite hard over the past few years not to yell at my sisters, (primarily Madelyn) while I am babysitting, because this type of situation has happened before. But anyway now that you know this, and if you have been paying attention to the last 790 words at all, you will know that I have not yelled, or even raised my voice up to this point. But at the current state, and the tension between us, I was so ready to yell at her. But, I decided to take a different route. I asked her in a semi-raised voice, (after being told that she did not have to listen to me again) “Do you want me to yell at you?!” and to my surprise, the answer was, “Yes!!!” this was not the answer I was looking for. And it surprised me so much, that I, being the equitable babysitter that I am, kept my sangfroid, and replied, “well I’m not going to” and walked back into the kitchen.

This is pretty much the end of my not very climactic story. But the night is not yet over, my mom has not returned home yet. So now your going to sit there and read what happened the rest of the night. Madelyn went back into her bedroom after a little more arguing in which I kept my aplomb, and did not raise my voice. Then after a little while ventured back out into the dining room and said that she would finish her soup. After trying to fill a sippie cup with soup and get off easy, I informed her that I had put her half empty, meatball-less bowl in the fridge, knowing that she would probably come out and eat it later on. So she warmed it back up and ate part of it, then went back into her room, called for me, asked me for some pencil lead, to which I replied, “If you finish your soup I’ll give you some”. So I went to my room, retrieved her lead, and traded it to her, for her empty bowl of soup.

I apologize for the terribly long sentences, misused punctuation, excessive use of commas,,, lack of a solid plot line, and use of big vocabulary words (which I took straight from my vocabulary book to sound more sophisticated, I’m sure it sounded bombastic to most of you).

If you like my writing, please tell my mom, and maybe I can work out a deal to get paid for a monthly blog post or something. Thanks –Caleb Liptak