The babysitting biz

Tatum Wray, a freshman at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart, often babysits for younger kids.

My younger brother, Evan, who is 9 years old, is very social and has many friends. For a long time, I thought making children happy was hard. However, I started having to watch my brother and his friends. First it started off as watching the boys and entertaining them. Slowly it turned into watching the kids while parents went out on a quick errand. But soon, parents were asking me to watch their kids for extended time. It was fine since most the kids I was watching were family friends.

The first time I remember babysitting was the craziest. It was on an extremely rainy day, and the parents were at my house for a baby shower. So naturally all the kids went to someone else’s house. Helping me were two of my best friends, Rachael Johnson and Isabel Goza. After letting the boys relax, watch television, and play games, my mom came over and told us that she wanted us to fill water balloons for the boys to play with. We gathered up the boys and went outside. All of us filled up balloons, and some threw them at each other. It was all right since there was a cycle of their clothes in the wash.

After we made all the water balloons, we went inside. Yet, we could not find the dog. A little 3 year old told us that the dog could jump over the fence. So, in the pouring rain, my two friends ran throughout the neighborhood. All in all, it was a very big disaster. We did find the dog, inside and dry in the house.

Now that I have some experience, here’s some advice on babysitting. I like to know who I am babysitting. I usually don’t have someone come up to me and ask, “Hey, want to babysit?” Instead I babysit the kids of my parents’ friends or coworkers. I also like to play and be engaged with the kids. Running around outside or playing with the kids I babysit is a good way to get to know them.

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