kids
The reason we agreed to watch my neices for SEVEN days (found out later it was actually eight) was because my SIL had been watching our baby. As they were leaving, my brother #3 said to hubby "Oh, you're taking time off of work to do this?" Well DUH, of course we are! How the hell else did they think we were going to do it?!
SIL's mother couldn't help us out except for weekends because she had to work. (Gee, so do we). So I call her, because on SIL's paper of directions for us it says her mother (the girls' grandmother) can take the girls over the weekend, as previously stated. I practically had to twist her arm to get her to take them overnight. She said "Well, I guess I could take them Sunday for the afternoon..." She said she wanted to go to the Greek Festival and it "wasn't condusive to children". WTH? I was blunt. "It would be better for us if you could take the girls Saturday overnight." Heh. She did.
She kept calling the 3 year old "the little one", and calling the older child the girls' mother's name. Leads me to believe they're not close. That, and the girls didn't run up to her yelling "Grandma!" Grandma had to put a towel down on the backseat of her SUV because she didn't want her leather scratched by the carseat. Heh. So, after giving hubby & I a snide remark about how late the girls were eating lunch, she took them off our hands and we were left with the dog, which stayed at our place last night.
I am so fucking stressed out. The girls are in our care (and the dog, cat, birds, house, etc.) till Friday, we are in the middle of searching for a child care provider for my son (next interview tomorrow), and I may have to testify at an evidentiary hearing for work. My boss is out of town this week, meaning I'm the boss, and somehow, shit always happens when she's gone.
Oh, speaking of shit, the 3 year old isn't potty trained yet *sigh*. I've been doing what I can to get her to pee in the potty, but she just won't do a #2 in there. I'm keeping her in pull-ups. I'm not cleaning up her shitty "big girl" panties. I'm trying to get her on the potty every hour. Sometimes she fights me, and I'll try to make it fun. When she really doesn't want to go, she won't even try. I'm not battling her. She's not my kid. Everytime she poops herself and wants me to clean it off, I hand her a wipe and let her know she needs to do it. When she says "No, it's yucky", I say "It's not my mess. You made it." She begrudgingly wipes herself and then I finish her off.
With that, hubby sent me this today:
Bill of rights for children
Because it is the most character-building, two-letter word in the English language, children have the right to hear their parents say "No" at least three times a day.
............................................
Children have the right to find out early in their lives that their parents don't exist to make them happy, but to offer them the opportunity to learn the skills they-children-will need to eventually make themselves happy.
............................................
Children have a right to scream all they want over the decisions their parents make, albeit their parents have the right to confine said screaming to certain areas of their homes.
............................................
Children have the right to find out early that their parents care deeply for them but don't give a hoot what their children think about them at any given moment in time.
............................................
Because it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, children have the right to hear their parents say "Because I said so" on a regular and frequent basis.
............................................
Because it is the most character-building activity a child can engage in, children have the right to share significantly in the doing of household chores.
............................................
Every child has the right to discover early in life that he isn't the center of the universe (or his family or his parents' lives) that he isn't a big fish in a small pond, that he isn't the Second Coming, and that he's not even-in the total scheme of things-very important at all, no one is, so as to prevent him from becoming an insufferable brat.
............................................
Children have the right to learn to be grateful for what they receive, therefore, they have the right to receive all of what they truly need and very little of what they simply want.
............................................
Children have the right to learn early in their lives that obedience to legitimate authority is not optional, that there are consequences for disobedience, and that said consequences are memorable and, therefore, persuasive.
............................................
Every child has the right to parents who love him/her enough to make sure he/she enjoys all of the above rights.