Babysitting

Brent and I need a date night. Being in young women's I know the girls in our ward pretty well. I know which ones I'd trust to care for my little one, and the ones who might need a couple more years of maturing before I'd let them watch him! It's kind of nice, feels a little like insider trading or something! So we were talking about getting a sitter and that got us talking about the first times we babysat as kids. Since Brent and I are both the oldest in our families we've had quite a bit of experience babysitting!! (to say the least!) We both seem to remember babysitting our siblings for the first time around 7 or 8!!! What were our parents thinking!!!! Here's a little of what we remember from those early, young days of babysitting. I have an over active imagination, always have. Even as an adult I've been home alone and freaked myself out that someone was here because I heard some noise. I'd have 911 dialed on my phone with my finger on the talk button ready to call as I head down stairs to check it out. Never anyone there, but my imagination sure told me there was. Well if I'm that bad as an adult you can only imagine how bad I was as a kid! My parents would come home to find all us kids huddled in one of our beds hiding, sometimes crying, because I had heard a noise and thought someone was trying to get into the house!!! Since I was in charge I'd gather my brothers and sisters and hide....to keep us safe of course! My poor brothers and sisters, victems of my imagination! This was also well before the days of cell phones, so I would call the grocery store my Mom and Dad were at and have them paged. Yeah you remember the paging system grocery stores have! I'd use it. My parents even came home to my Grammy and Grandy being there, I was scared, lonely, overwhelmed, what ever. I called them, they came over! Bless them! Brent said he called 911 one time, just to see what would happen. He hung up when they answered. His Mom came home to a cop on the door step. He blamed it on his baby sister! Again, can you imagine coming home to a cop on your door step!?!? The very first time Brent babysat while his parents were gone, he remembers being VERY scared. Being the smart boy that he is he knew how to protect himself! He got every gun and big knife in the house, sat in the kitchen and surrounded himself by them! Can you imagine coming home and finding your 7 or 8 year old little boy in the kitchen surrounded by hunting rifles, a butchering knife, shot gun, ice pick?????? We really laughed about this because if anyone had broken in, they certainly would not have needed to bring any weaponry, he just provided them with ample choices of guns and knives!!! We both decided we'll be getting a babysitter for a good long time!!!