Fluff Fluff Pass

So last week, I learned why every single babysitter/nanny/caregiver site requires you to be current in your First Aid and CPR. If you aren't, do it. Immediately.

The Bear family (who are also friends, on top of being employers) invited us to a fancy museum not last Saturday but the one before. Little Bear found the birds more amusing than the art (they were black but secretly had red wings) and I noticed as she ran that her little nose was running. Great, work on Monday would...not be pleasant if it turned into a full-blown cold.

Sure enough I get a text from Mama Bear on Sunday that Monday would consist of endless wiping of baby snoozles (her word for snot). Woo. Hoo. But I was feeling pretty healthy, taking my vitimins and stuff so I was up to the challenge.

Monday brought probably one of the strangest/scariest babysitting days of my life. It turns out that "lethargy" in babies means that they lie on the ground next to their favorite toy and flail their arms at it because they don't have enough energy to stand up and play with it. I picked her up and had her nap on my lap with her head angled so she could breathe easier. Soon after she woke up, her parents came home and I reported the odd behaviors. I looked up her other symptoms such as rapid breathing (>50 breaths per minute) on the internet and it said to call 911 immediately. Mama Bear called, dubious because so often the internet is wrong. 911 people said to stay put and they were sending an ambulance immediately, it really did warrent the call.

I drove the family's car to the hospital where I waited with them in the ER and gave the doctors all of the information about that morning since I'd been with her the whole time. Oma Bear (Little Bear's grandmother) came to help and I went home.

I was really unsure about whether or not to share this story because I have felt really guilty since it happened that I didn't call 911 earlier. Then I talked with an advisor-figure who said that it is a matter of experience. I had never seen a child in respiratory distress, neither had her parents, so we did not know what was going on. I thought maybe I could find some support on the internet of other baby-sitters/nannys who have gone through similar experiences, but there don't seem to be many blogs dedicated to such things. I am thoroughly grateful that there are sites dedicated to diagnosing symptoms though, so we could figure out before the pediatrician called that calling 911 was necessary. I think upon feeling badly; I hadn't considered that if the internet wasn't there, it actually might have been another hour till 911 was called. So the internet is the hero of the story again.

I would like to state that there are even fewer blogs dedicated to people working in childcare (not teaching though) who actually have as awesome a job as me. I realised this when the Bear came home from the hospital and I got to sit for her yesterday. Even after being in a metal cage for 3 days, she is still very playful and now loves her bears even more. Probably the happiest part of my job is tickling her for minutes on end and her giggling. The lack of positive blogs is sad, I think, because a lot of little kids and their parents are awesome people.

Needless to say, my week generally went to crap after that. But some really powerfully positive events changed that around by Friday. One of my good friends, The Romanean, gave me this book:

I spent time with friends. I just took time to myself and then on Sunday, PartnerPenguin and I did something ritzy! We used a Fluff-n-Fold service at the local laundromat (which is called a "washouse" if you live in my neighborhood). If you don't know what that is, it's when you give other people your laundry and they do it for you. It's pretty expensive but it saved us about 5 hours. It turns out that just taking one big stressor out of your life allows you to get a lot done.

I paid this stress-saver forward to Mama Bear and did her laundry for her yesterday. Paying it forward is always the way to spread stress-reduction to those whom you are close to. So do something nice for someone close to you, you never know how much that might relieve the stress on their plate!!

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Simple, cheap recipe today:

Pumpkin soup:

*One medium, head-sized pumpkin (we found the perfect size for $2.22)

*Either cloves, nutmeg or ginger. All three might taste too much like pie

*Broth (As always, I used 1 tsp Better Than Bullion to 1 cup water) edit: I forgot to mention that it's 1 c broth per every 2 ish cups pumpkin. If your pumpkin looks mushy or like play-doh, ADD WATER!!

Open pumpkin. Take out seeds and you can bake those for a yummy treat. Cut up pumkin to fist size bits or a little bigger, leave skin on. Bake at 450, uncovered in oven until you can smuush the flesh easily with a fork. Let cool a bit, then take off the flesh into a bowl. Either in a blender or with a masher, combine the broth and the spices. Maybe if you feel ambitous, heat it all together in a pot.

Yum!

Silly video today!: