Not a New Year’s Resolution

I’ve been meaning to start a blog for a long time.  It just happened to coincide with the start of a new year.  I’m not a fan of making “New Year’s Resolutions” because I feel like I should be trying to better my life throughout the year.

I’m babysitting today, tomorrow, and the next day.  I’m constantly shocked at the stupid things that come out of my mouth when I’m babysitting.  When trying to convince one of the kids he needed to go potty, I said, “Superman goes potty, I saw him.”  Wait.  What.  Did I just say that I saw Superman go potty?  That doesn’t even make sense.  Granted, it did convince the kid to go potty so there is that.

The kids wanted to go sledding.  I did not want to leave the warm house.  The kids starting putting on mittens, snowpants, snowshoes, and hats.  I had my coat and my shiny new purple scarf (Thanks, Mark!).  Grumpy babysitter was grumpy and unprepared.  Grumpy babysitter is also a good babysitter so I found myself trudging along carrying sleds as I followed the kids as they insisted the hill was just a little bit farther.

Ok, I’ll be honest.  I’m 24.  I’ve never been sledding.  Yes, I’ve lived in places my whole life that have had snow.  I only have one memory of playing in the snow as a child though.  We were at my grandparent’s house, and there was a fresh batch of snow.  I’m fairly sure that my father wasn’t there or this playing in the snow thing would not have gone down.  My grandpa brought out baskets of mismatched socks and gloves (as I reflect on this as an adult, my grandpa must have lost a lot of gloves to have baskets full of them).  My cousins were from Texas and never got to play in snow either (I do recall that the cousin from Chicago did not come play with us).  We piled on socks and gloves and layers of my grandpa’s clothes until we were looking like the Michelin Man.  We played out hearts out, lamely trying to build snowmen and make snow angels and engage in snowball fights like we saw in the cartoons.  I feel like I have a picture of us somewhere from that one time when I took photos of actual photos in albums at my grandma’s house.  If that sounds weird, it oddly turned out to be an excellent last chance plan to preserve memories.

But, I digress.  We were at the top of the hill.  The kids told me horror stories of how their mom couldn’t climb back up the hill because she didn’t have the right shoes.  I resolved that the kids were going to go sledding and I’d watch from the top of the hill.  Okay, fine, I was scared.  I didn’t want to try to go sledding for the first time and trip and break my neck and be The Worst Babysitter ever.  Kids are my weak spot though, and they convinced me to try it out.  Both kids promised to hold my hands and that we could all go down together.  Yes, that’s right, the kids were reassuring the adult.  We got on the sled together, and I made them pause just so I could take a picture and prove to the world I did it in case I hated it and never wanted to do it again.

And we were off!  I screamed.  The children were silent up until that point, and then they started to giggle at me.  It was fun!  I did it again!  They didn’t even have to hold my hands this time.  Sledding adventure: success.