The Babysitter's Club- San Antonio Edition

After it became apparent some time ago that my normal summer job of working at a doctor's office was not going to be an option this summer, I began seeking other options. See, I only had that job because a certain friend of mine was married to a certain doctor's son. And you should further see, that said friend divorced that particulars doctors son in the last year. So, "so said job" became obsolete for me.

I should insert a note here, I do honestly believe that the said doctor's office was too overstaffed for me this summer. But, either way, the fact remains, what to do for extra work this summer?

So that's where early childhood reading comes to the rescue: THE BABYSITTERS

CLUB.

Minus the club.

Cause that's just weird at 28-years-old.

But babysitting, that would be totally fine! So I joined enannysource.com, emailed a few different people I knew around Austin that I thought could put me in touch with people with kids.

So far the results in Austin have been slim. But I did babysit a few weeks ago for two little boys, one 5 and the other 3. It went well, they tried to pull a couple of slick moves on me, but I know the youngsters ways, and I called them on it. Overall, it was a great time!

So that leads me to this past weekend, my brother, Brad, had a wedding to attend in San Antonio and him and his wife, Jennifer, asked me some time ago if I would be willing to come down to watch their kids and I would be compensated by getting to enjoy San Antonio with them. I, of course, obliged!

Brad also knew I was looking for babysitting jobs (he even emailed a friend of his living in Austin about my wanting jobs). One thing leads to another, and all of a sudden I have agreed to babysit his friends two little boys as well.

Luckily, Jennifer's mom (and her aunt and two nephews) were planning a trip to San Antonio around the same time and decided to make it the same weekend as this wedding so they could all be there together and they could help out. Which worked out wonderfully for me, cause I had back-up, if need be (which was helpful for the girls because putting four kids to bed in the same room at the same time is quite the pipe dream). And we did have con-joining rooms,which was really helpful!

Friday night all of us family members went out to eat for Mexican food. It was a great dinner, minus the bees. They were out of control.

After that, we went back to the room and I watched the four kids while Brad, Jennifer, and the boys parents went out with their friends after the rehearsal dinner. Really, by the time they went out, we had time for one game, Richard Scary's Busytown (awesome game that I gave my niece the weekend before for a belated b-day gift, I played it when babysitting the other two kids a few weeks ago. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone with children.). The kids all loved it (including my sister-in-laws older 10 and 9 year-old-old nephews who came over from next door to play) and all behaved very well for the game.

The next day we went to the Alamo. The temperature in San Antonio was 105 that

day. I think inside the Alamo it was about twice that. They had one tiny sign (that I saw) stating why it was that hot, they were working on the roof and had to remove most of the air conditioners. It made for quite the miserable time, which led to us taking the girls home for an early nap.

Afterwards we went for a short swim in the hotel pool, which can be seen here from the room, and the building across the street:

Then, they left for the wedding. With four kiddos in my command, I had a few activities planned. All of which took about 45 minutes to complete.

And that's when I started to panic.

Luckily, dinner (pizza) arrived at that time.

After that, the kids wanted to watch a movie (Tangled, after much motivation by the girls). But since the movie makers like to include about 15 DVD's in the same DVD case, it was inevitable that the one that actually works at playing a DVD on a computer was left at home. That's where things started to unravel with the kids waiting and not having anything to do and pillows and things started to fly, and I started to really sweat. But I quickly got things back under control, and I got a different movie to work.

After the movie was playing for some time the kiddos, individually, would decide to come back to one of the other activities I had planned. And they would go back and forth, which I was totally cool with, because they were occupied, happy and tamed.

By the way, the activity I had planned was making their dad's a father's day card or drawing. One of the boys, we'll call him Steve, REALLY got into making his dad a great father's day card! He spent most of his night making the best father's day card he could make! Here they are coloring and watching a movie:

The next day we walked around the river walk, here's Elle, Grey, and their cousins Hunter and Austin:

Then, we took the famous San Antonio boat tour, which I am pretty sure that between my brother and myself, we could give the tour ourselves based off of our knowledge we had already exhibited that weekend while walking around San Antonio. But regardless, you still have to do it. But when it's like LITERALLY 105 degrees outside, kids can't be interested in boat tours. In fact, I think you can see the decline in their happiness for the boat tour though these photos. By the end, Elle was sleeping on my brother and myself's lap (which I didn't get a picture of due to my own near heat exhaustion):

Lastly, we went to lunch at a nice little cafe that had most importantly, air conditioning. I had such a great weekend in San Antonio, and I would do it all over again! I would suggest maybe waiting until a cooler month, however. I had a great time babysitting (most of the time, when DVD's worked the way they should) and being around the sites! It's such a unique town and a great town to visit, love it!!!