Adventures in Babysitting – Valentine’s Day Edition.

Part II- Bedtime.

Steven, having finally made his entrance with little fanfare, sits with Squeak watching
SuperWhy.


Me: Where’s Pip?
Squeak: She’s in the bathroom.
Me (outside the bathroom door): Pip, you okay in there?
Pip (mid teeth-brushing mumbles) : Yeah why?

She has miraculously started the bedtime routine without any prompting from her babysitters. (I have never seen a child do this). She has changed into her nightgown, cleaned her new ear piercing with Claire’s ear solution. She offers me a cotton pad with said solution to clean mine.

Squeak pops in and gets her toothbrush ready. She, too, swabs her tiny ear piercings.

We go to the playroom for Steven’s Helicopter air show.


It’s a big hit.

After the helicopter’s unfortunate crash into the shoe bin, we all retire for story time.




Me: "I will not eat them here or there…"

Pip: My dad reads it upside down.

I turn the book upside down and continue.

Me: "I do not like them anywhere!"

Pip & Squeak: UPSIDE DOWN!!

I think to myself, maybe Pip's and Squeak’s dad literally gets upside down to read them Green Eggs and Ham ? I scan the house for telltale yoga mats. Maybe he kicks himself up into a yogi headstand for bedtime stories ? I bend myself over at the waist and continue reading:

Me: "You do not like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam-I-am."

Pip & Squeak: Upside down! Upside down!

They are laughing hysterically.

I try, unsuccessfully, to become even more upside down. My head is nearly touching the floor. This is making it really difficult to read.

Me: "Sam! If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see."

I try, inconspicuously to right myself into a standing position without the girls noticing.

Pip: My dad does this here. She demonstrates her dad’s facial and hand positions for the very important part of the story:

"SAY! I do like green eggs and ham! I do! I like them, Sam-I am!"

Pip & Squeak: He likes them! He likes them!

They bound around giggling.


Later, when yogi master dad returns home I ask him;

Me: What’s with the upside down?

Pip's & Squeak’s dad: Oh, I just turn the book upside down.