Megan, Sweet Megan

Tonight I babysit for a family by the name of Jehle. When I arrived at 7:05PM respectively, Megan was in need of a bath. \ This being only my 5th night watching the five children, I was not at all sure if the 4-year-old would yet feel comfortable with my helping her bathe. But she surprised me by saying, “Yes,” when asked if she wanted help. Regretfully, she set aside the three containers of nail polish she had held in her hands and rushed to the door to show me. Then we dashed upstairs and plugged up the tub.

Directly afterward we headed for the kitchen table, where I proceeded to paint Megan’s nails — blue, pink sparkles, purple, blue, pink sparkles. On her other hand I chucked that pattern and just did purple, blue, pink sparkles, blue, and purple. Unfortunately, the blue was that cheap little-girl nail polish crap that NEVER stays on. The four times Megan went to the bathroom (she’d had a *lot* of apple juice), she took care to inform me, “Niiiiina! My bdue nail poliss is tumming off…”

“To Grandmother’s House We Go” — or, what I’ve dubbed “the grandma house game” — was played 5 times; I won 2 games and Meg won 3. This game is basically like Candyland, except the play pieces aren’t little colored gingerbread men who trot around the board in attempt to save King Kandy and escape that evil lickerish guy and melted chocolate fatty monster. In fact, all the grandma-house-game pieces are lost, so Meg and I made-do for 2 rounds with 2 little shells (she got the prettier one), and 3 rounds with 2 different rocks (she got the marble-y one while I got the lava-looking rock ;). The cards players flip are either pink, purple, blue, green, yellow, or red, and all the colors are matched with different shapes. The path curves around the board, and the first player to reach Grandma’s House wins.

Apparently, contrary to my former belief (I played the game a few times with her last week), there IS a skill to this game. Because Meg possesses it!

Oh, goodness. I sometimes get such blooming, happy feelings when I’m babysitting. For example, some of the cards for the grandma’s-house-game might have a message: “Smile at a player and draw another card” “Give a player a Big Hug and draw another card”  “Make your silliest face at a player and move ahead two spaces.” The first time we played this game, Jon played with us. (It took a little while for Meg to warm up to me the first couple of weeks, and Jon always had to be present to make things less awkward – for her 🙂 Whenever Megan got one of those cards, she’d to pretty near every single one to her older brother.

Tonight, with only the two of us, she did every. single. one. to me. I was so elated! Since we played the game 5 times over, we got almost all the cards 3 times each. Including the Big Hug one. The first time, I got that card. “Give a player a Big Hug,” I read aloud. I put the card on the board and opened my arms, grinning. “Hug me?” I asked her.

Megan’s grin lit up her entire face and she jumped up and ran into me. “Mmmmm,” I squeeze a few seconds, and as I started to let go I felt her arms still tightly pressed around me. I squeezed again, then began to let go. But she STILL held me tight! After a little while longer, she finally released me.

I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t think she’d EVER do that to me!

Gah. At times like this… I love my job. Even if it is only once a week. ❤