One More Time

This week commenced my adventures in babysitting (at least for the next 6 weeks). My grand niece started kindergarten and for the first 6 weeks it's only for half a day. Since her mother works in the city nearby she needs somewhere to go after school. We live right in her neighborhood so I was the logical person to take care of her. We've been having a fun time together. The first day we read stories and made a cake. Yesterday I began to teach her to knit and we made felted wool balls. Today we read again and she fell asleep (apparently I haven't lost my touch - Millions of Cats is just sing-songy enough to lull even a 5 year old to sleep if she's tired enough).

It's fun to be reading picture books again. My own kids had pretty much outgrown them by 5, but this 5 year old hasn't been read to very much, so it's all pretty new to her. She's got the personality of a Labrador retriever puppy. Everything is new and exciting, but her attention span isn't very long, so you have to keep things hopping.

It's exhausting in some ways, it's a lot of fun in others. It certainly brings back memories and it certainly is a wonderful pleasure having a warm little body pressed up against my side while I read old favorite books. I have to admit I'd also forgotten what a relief it is when a high energy kid finally falls asleep for a nap.