Am I Loosing Being Patient & More than Fair?

I know I've posted about the kids and my babysitting sagas. Well, I've hit my limit with the mom. I don't get the common courtesy of being told when she doesn't need me 95% of the time. Yesterday was a perfect example.

I'm all set to watch the kids. Even ready to go before they get off hte bus. Have I been told that the mom's boyfriend is now watching them on Thursdays? No. Not at all. Not even given an indication. I find out by going up to the car and the mom ("J") rolling down her window and asking me if I wanted a ride down to the shop. Today when I'm talking to her mom, her mom mentions something about the kids being busy this weekend. THat I might want to call "J." I've called "J" and left her a message knowing I won't hear from her before I leave for knitting in the morning even though I said in the message it's ok to call me when she gets out of work and wake me up.

I've hit the point that I'm going to tell "J: that I'm going to go on in my life and make plans. If she needs me, to give me 24 hours notice minimum and I'll watch the kids unless it's a weekend I'm going to my parents. On those weeks though I will make sure I have other arrangements set up though. Am I being fair? This happens so many times, me not getting the courtesy of being told. Or am I just being a frustrated person.

Kids!!!

I'm on the verge of quitting babysitting the 10 "C" and 13 "N"year olds. I'm actually at the pint of issiung an ultimatium. This is what's gone on the past couple weeks to cause me to get to this point.

One Wednesday a couple weeks back I get Nand C off the bus from school. Everything goes fine at first. That is till they go outside, play, and I go to the bathroom. In the couple minutes I was in the bathroom they start to fight outide. N comes in gets the phone and calls his grandmother instead of getting me. That issue gets resolved.

Not 10 minutes later they are in the kitchen and I hear C yelling at N to get away from her. I go to find out whats going on and C says that N went to hit her with the Wiffle ball bat. N says he was playing with the dog. Whatever the deal...why does he have the bat in the house. Also C is on the counter away from him and the dog is away from him too. I tell N to give me the bat. He says "NO." I'm now in the middle of the kitchen and mad at him and the way he's talking to me (not new for him, but new for him to me). I look at C and tell her to go into the living room. I tell N to give me the bat again and he refuses so I take it from him and tell him to get in the office, and announce that noone is going out to play. He says he doesn't have to listen to me and walks outside. I've had it and call his grandfather. In the meantime their mom calls and I tell her what's going on. She gets there and picks up the kids.

It's now 3 days later and I have the kids for the night. N's already in a bad mood. I'm having a hard time as I'm dealing with the new's of my cousin's baby's loss. N and C's mom leaves for work. Not 5 minutes later N goes into C's room and get's her game system and brings it into her system. They start fighting over it. I try to end it with a couple options as I don't know what the rule is as to where it is supposed to be. Yet again N gets nasty with me. I call his mom to find out the rule and she says to take it out of both their rooms. Things escalate, N won't give it to me and his mom has to call N's grandfather. Thankfully the takes N for the night. In the meantime I get the game system by rtemoving his hand from it and and getting threatened by N.

Which brings us to tonight. Before I even get there tonight to watch the kids I get yelled at and N is off the wall. I'm in tears and an anxious stressed out wreck. I actually had to tell the kids grandmom that I couldn't handle it tonight. Between the kid being so wriled up, knowing I was going to be left with him in that kind of mood, and me being yelled at for no reason, I just couldn't take it. I was an emotional wreck. Which leads to my ultimatium. Either the kid goes back on his medication (which he needs) and striaghtens out his act, or I quit watching them.

Gotta Laugh At Yourself

And tonight was one of those nights that I did. So I ended up sitting Nicky and Carlie. THere was a little issue of the sitter calling Julie 45 min before she was supposed to be here saying she needed a ride. That was also the time Julie was getting ready for work so her going to get the sitter was not an option. It was me to the rescue. Hey I was on standby for things like this anyways.

The kids were great all night. Dodn't have to ask them to take chowers. No problems with them going to bed. Actually one went to bed early of their own accord. I shoud have known things were going too smoothly.

It was, and the hitch came about an 75 min ago when I went to come upstairs to my own place (I was watching them downstairs). I heard a little voice out of the bathroom saying that they didn't feel good. Turns out that Carlie had thrown up and their stomach was bothering them. Ok. I can deal with this, but my mind just blanked out. Give me a crisis. I can handle blood; cuts, even a deep ones. I can handle choking, cardiac and respriatory arrest. Basically Give me emergencies and I'm good. It's from my being a CNA and nursing student. Also, naturally I can handle the female end of life. Give me run of the mill things and I tend to blank out for a second. I can handle myself, but to figure out how to care for someone else in this aspect...I'm a tad bit rusty. I ended up doing a few things (try to make her laugh, cool washcloth, offer pepto, give her a bowl) and then once I got her resting again called a friend to double check that I didn't forget anything. Oh yeah left a voice mail on her mom's cell. Hey I haven't raised any kids of my own yet. I just do it vicariously through others. It made my friend laugh though, me calling about wether or not I left anything out.

Grrrr

If i could have been able to turn back time yesterday I would have in a moment. The first half of my day went well. All of it until I walked in the door from knitting group around 3:30 or so.

As soon as i walked in my phone was ringing. It turned out to be a groupmate of mine and she was mad. Apparently she mistook something that another groupmate said to her wrong and was mad at us. It all goes back to what took place at group earlier in the week. She's one of the ones that asn't there. Not being in the mood to deal with it right then and needing to knw what was said to her I asked if we could talk in a little bit. She wasn't happy but said fine. I talked to the other groupmate. She called the mad one back talked to her and told her that she could call me back. I wasn't mad, but needed to take care of few things. In the long run ended up with the ticked off groupmate calling me back yelling and swearing at me. I didn't say anything, hung up, called the other one back and let her know what happened so we are on the same page. So now I'm just not taking her calls. If I could go back I would have stayed at knitting longer and not take my groupmates inital call in the first place. Also I'll have to deal with the group leader in the morning most likley since I called her to give her a heads up on the situation too. Grrrrr. What to do.