CONTENT WARNING: Cancer

When my brother was eleven and I was ten, we became big siblings to our baby half-sister. Our dad and stepmom wanted us to bond with the baby, so they decided to give us money to babysit her when they went out for, like, thirty minutes at a time. My brother and I had been home alone plenty of times, and I think we were generally trusted to be fairly responsible kids.

The first time, my dad and stepmom went to the cafe around the corner to get a sandwich lunch. They weren’t gone for more than thirty minutes, and our sister had just started her nap.

A true comedy of errors ensued: my brother tried to fill up a glass of water in the sink but ended up spilling the glass on the kitchen floor. As he went to fill it up again, he ended up slipping in the water and falling down. As he fell down, he grabbed at me for support, but I’ve always been very small (I think I was like half his weight), so I fell down first, and the way we landed ended with me breaking the frame and one ear of my glasses, and my brother writhing around in pain.

My stepmom came in the door first to find me panicking, blind, unable to see, my brother with a twisted ankle (it took like two weeks to heal), and my baby sister crying.

The first time we babysat, she was five months old, I believe. The next time we babysat, she was nine months old, and I was hospitalized and later first diagnosed with cancer the next day, so…

I’ve been cancer-free for twelve years.

My sister is a teen now, and we still joke that she was bad luck as a baby.

My mother-in-law is visiting for a week. We get along pretty well, and I like her firecracker personality.

The first morning she’s visiting, after breakfast, we see her putting her shoes on and getting ready to leave.

Husband: “Where are you going?”

Mother-In-Law: “Shopping! I don’t come to the city often, and I want to buy some nice clothes.”

Husband: “Oh, I thought you might want to spend the day with your grandchildren.”

Mother-In-Law: “Plenty of time this week for that.”

Husband: “Oh, but [My Name] and I needed to go do some things, and…”

Mother-In-Law: “So you wanted me to stay here alone with the kids as a free babysitter?”

I’m laughing because I know that’s what my husband was thinking, and his silence is proving his guilt.

Mother-In-Law: “Thought so. Look, I’m here on vacation! I’m not here to put socks on centipedes!”

She puts her last shoe on and opens the door.

Mother-In-Law: “My Uber is here. I’ll be back in time for dinner. Have a nice day with your children!”

Mad props to her; she knows what she wants and how to get it. She did spend plenty of time with our two boys that week, but she wanted a “me-day” on her vacation, and as a mother myself, I totally get it.

CORRECTION: Inconsistent character title has been corrected.

When I was a few months old, I briefly stopped breathing while taking a nap. At the time, I was being watched by an aunt who caught it in time to start infant CPR, and once I recovered, she watched me like a hawk until my parents came to pick me up.

She told them everything, and naturally, my parents were pretty freaked out. So they took me to the pediatrician, wondering if I potentially had some sort of lung disease or condition that had been missed earlier.

At the doctor’s, my parents told the pediatrician exactly what had happened: I’d been asleep, my aunt had noticed my lips were blue, and she’d administered infant CPR until I’d woken up and started breathing again. I’d shown no other symptoms since.

Doctor: “Oh, yes, they do that sometimes.”

Parents: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY DO THAT SOMETIMES?!”

Yeah, babies can be bent on self-destruction even before they reach the crawling phase. I am now a healthy adult with no breathing difficulties!

My husband and I left our kids with our regular babysitter so we could have a date. When we came back, we asked how the kids had been.

Babysitter: “[Son] is so good with [Daughter] that I figured I’d teach him how to babysit her. He’s really good at it. Want to see?”

Me: “Sure, [Son], let’s see.”

[Babysitter] laid our daughter down on the couch, then our son came over and literally sat on top of her. He was careful not to apply his full weight, though, and [Daughter] giggled along as he wiggled around on top of her.

Babysitter: “See, he’s a natural babysitter! I taught him how to change her, too. Here [Son], can you change her?”

[Babysitter] handed toy cat ears to [son], who placed them on our daughter. He then tries to cover her with her blanket before pulling it off again like a magic trick.

Son: “She a cat!”

Babysitter: “You forgot poof! You can’t change someone into an animal without saying poof, it’s a rule!”

Son: “Oof. A cat!”

Babysitter: “There you go, perfect! He insists he’s already fed her a bottle, so now all we need to do is teach him how to put her down for a nap, and I’ll be out of a job.”

Yeah, our babysitter is a bit odd at times, but [Son] loves her and refuses to let anyone else babysit him, so I guess we’re stuck with the insanity.

I’m driving to pick up my toddler from my sister’s house. She’s been babysitting him all afternoon while I have been running errands. I call her while I’m driving back.

Me: “Hey, [Sister], just to let you know, I’m all done, so I’m driving back to yours now. Should be there in about half an hour.”

Sister: “Oh! Oh… wow… that’s earlier than I was expecting.”

Me: “Yeah, the errands didn’t take as long as I thought.”

Sister: “Uhm… okay…”

Me: “Why do you sound weird?”

Sister: “Okay, don’t be mad.”

Me: “…what happened?”

Sister: “Well, the good news is I got to him before he finished the second half of the Red Bull…”

When I got there, my almost-three-year-old was doing laps in the yard between drinking water to dilute the caffeine. He was fine, but my sister decided to keep the energy drinks separate from the soda cans from now on…