Babysitting 8 Marine Children

So, wow. What a day.

As a favor to my mother, and a friend of my mother I agree to babysit for 8 children from 4am (when the dad left for a flight out of Chicago) to 9pm (when the mom got home from her return flight out of Chicago). I'd never met the mother, the father, or a single one of their 8 children. So around 10pm the night before I realized I hadn't spoken to the mother since the ONE time we talked about the job 3 weeks prior, I didn't know if they still needed me to do it, where they lived, or anything. So I called and after several attempts got through to the dad who was basically like, "See ya at 4am!"

So I show up at 4am and meet the dad. He's totally cool. Basically he says "Here's our wipe-off board of information, here's a bed you can sleep in 'till the kids get up, and here's where we keep our coffee pot." All the essentials, totally efficient. So as an afterthought I determine where the 1 and 3 year old are sleeping (I figured they'd be my biggest concerns), and get a run down of names that went in one ear out the other, and establish there are no seizure kids or medications to be dealt with. Awesome. Then he leaves.

So a couple hours later I go into the bathroom (for obvious reasons) and before I can even get down to business I realize that the toilet is already hopelessly clogged. So I start plunging. Then I hear this knocking on the door. When I say knocking, what I really mean is patting. Like a tiny tiny palm gently bumping it in succession. So I instinctively (and tiredly) say "Just a minute!" in my friendly voice. In the three seconds that follow between plunges I have a panicked realization that a small child just knocked on the bathroom door... WHAT if they have an accident. Before I can even wonder I hear a tiny squeaky voice say, "Uhh... is everything alRIGHT in there..?" So I start laughing, open the door, and introduce myself to the tiny slip of a girl (6 yo) who comes sauntering in. She's talking a mile a minute filling me in with all the family gossip, who has what "problems," while I unclog the toilet, and then we proceed to brush our teeth and hair together. This kid is totally hysterical. Most of them were.

Six boys and two girls, ages 16 to 18 months. Why didn't the 16 yo babysit, you ask? Because the 14 year old is 6'2 and the 11 yo 5'9 (substantially taller than her) and the two beneath them are just as bad and all four are the sons of a retired marine and, quote, "We LOVE a good fight!!"

But for all that, they're INSANELY disciplined and pretty much did everything that needed to be done automatically. I don't know how children get to be as helpful as theirs were..... must be a marine thing...

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"Sir?" Jermained pretended not to hear her and kept walking. "Sir!" He stopped. "Do you have an appointment?" He screwed up his face a little and looked at her. "No, no I don't. I just need a moment, though. In and out." Her cold, haughty blue eyes gave him a quick once over. "I'm sorry, but that's not possible. If you want to make an appointment, I'm sure we can fit you in sometime at the beginning of next week..." He cursed under his breath and started to walk away. Halfway across the room he turned abruptly and walked briskly into the men's room....