Be thankful I'm not your mom!

It's no secret that I'm not exactly sure what to do with babies. I learned this lesson when Catie Grace was like 6 months old and Heather went out of town and asked me to babysit. I think I kept her during the day...and when mom came home she helped me with her. I can remember that I didn't know how to get Catherine to fall asleep, and she screamed a lot. A. Lot. And so I would drive around in my car, with her in the carseat, just to get her to sleep. And I can remember using like a whole tank of gas, because I was so tired and I just needed her to sleep.

I was 16.

I wasn't really a kid who babysat for people either. I remember I used to babysit for one of my teachers. Her son was named Jack. I remember thinking it was the cutest name ever for a little boy. Anyway, he was like 9 months to a year old and I remember not really knowing what the heck I was doing. I also remember that the family had just gotten a little white kitten. And since we all know how I feel about baby cats (SATAN!!) you can just imagine how thrilled I was about the baby/cat combo.
One of the Saturdays I was babysitting Jack we played outside for a while and then we went inside because it was the summer and it was in the south and the heat and humidity was stifling. I think it must have been lunch time, because I put Jack in his high chair and went to the kitchen to get some food for him. I can't imagine that I'd give him food to pacify him if it wasn't lunchtime, since I have superior skills with kids. ;-D
Anyway, I remember I warmed him up some little raviolis. They were little bitty and just right for his little hands to pick up and put them in his mouth. But I was afraid of a mess, so I proceeded to try to feed him with a spoon. He did okay at first...then he started grabbing at the spoon instead of eating, thus getting ravioli sauce all over his hands. Then I'd put the ravioli down (on his high chair tray, of course!) and go grab a napkin and he'd be elbow deep in ravioli. He must have been trying to make my life a nightmare because then he started flinging ravioli all around. He was waving his hands in the air like he just didn't care. I remember that the carpet was bright white, and there were little drops of ravioli all over it. I'm pretty sure I decided that Jack had had enough ravioli and I picked him up (probably with two fingers on each hand--he was DIRTY!) and carried him into his bedroom to change his clothes. I knew I was risking major damage by leaving that ravioli to sit for even a few minutes, but I felt like if I let Jack go he'd just make little orange hand prints over the walls, carpet, couch and me--when I fainted from the stress. So, I take him back to his room, take off his clothes (probably spattering ravioli sauce all over the wall) and change his clothes, wipe him down, and then go back to the kitchen to clean up the carpet. I remember someone telling me that baby wipes would clean almost anything, so I came armed with baby wipes to try to clean ravioli off the white white white carpet.
When I came back to the high chair...I couldn't find any ravioli spots. All the spots were gone! What happened??
You know what happened? That devil cat came behind us and ate every bit of ravioli off the floor, and he must have really liked it, or been really hungry (maybe I was supposed to feed him too!!) because he sucked all the sauce from the carpet. Not a spot was left.

Turns out that baby cats ARE good for something.

Oh, and on a side note...I don't think that family asked me to babysit again after that.