LE WEEK-END

This weekend was full of homemade tomato soup, rented movies from the library, a little knitting, homework, and of course the Desperate Housewives. But my weekend isn't really what I want to focus on right now.
I started babysitting for a family in Grand Rapids between my classes instead of working in retail or at a restaurant. I did the whole Red Robin thing for three years, and I'm over it. I love babysitting. It's fun, easy, and I generally learn things from the kids. Not to mention, in my opinion, it is the best way to prevent teen pregnancy. Don't want your 16-year-old daughter to get pregnant by her new tattooed beau named Rex? Give her a two year old and a math assignment and tell her she needs to finish the assignment in forty-five minutes while tending to the child's every need... and she can't sit them in front of a TV.
But anyways. The kids I watch are two and four, and while I have watched two-year-olds and four-year-olds, I've never watched them in the same house... at once. And if you haven't either, it's pretty difficult. They're both at ages that they're constantly learning things. Just because I'm the babysitter, and I only see them for a few hours a day twice a week, doesn't mean that they don't pick up on little things like my mood or how tired I am. Today will forever in my mind be known as "Carrot Struggles".
Making lunch isn't really challenging for kids. PB&J or macaroni and cheese, fruit, veggie, maybe a cheese stick, maybe a chicken nugget. The boy eats fabulously; it's like anything I put in front of him, he'll eat it. I love it. The little girl is a little pickier. Today, just to try it out, I put a carrot on her plate. I wish I had known. There were tears, words we both regret were said, and someone almost went down for her nap. But the carrot was spit out, hugs were given, and all was right with the world.
"Can I hab dessert?"
Of course you can hab dessert. Talk with that little voice and you both can hab whatever you want. They both had a chocolate pudding cup. Within two minutes, his was gone. An appropriate amount of time for eating a pudding cup, in my opinion. She took 12 minutes to eat hers... but with chocolate all over her face, we had the best conversation. About her best friend, about her brudder and her sister, and about how she didn't think she needed to take naps anymore. But we finished the pudding, we went on the big girl potty, and we snuggled into bed for a nap... well... I left...