by Christine Mcdermott

Created on: July 01, 2009

It was 1966. Even though we lived right next door, I thought babysitting for six kids was terribly important work, especially since I was all of thirteen years old. I made it clear at home that I would only call if I could not handle the babysitting or if I had a question about the job. I was determined not to have to call though, because I was a responsible, young lady with six urchins entrusted to my care.

The day started out well. The older children, Matthew and Dorinne (they called her Dot), were helping me with Casey and the baby, Brian. The two middle children, Stacy and Mark, were just glad to have me there and constantly wanted to play...so we did. For awhile we played outside in the warm day, brightened by lots of sunshine. We played hide-and-go-seek, we played statue, we played tag. While the boys finished running around, the girls even played Jacks. Onesies, twosies, pigs in the blanket, strawberries (Jacks was something I was very good at).

When the sun went down it was time to start the hard work of getting everyone ready for bed and making a nice supper. I was starting to narrow down my choice of how many children I was going to have later in life, but at this time I was still a responsible, young lady with six urchins to think about. I had the bright idea of having the older children take their baths first, because I figured I could watch over the rest of the tribe and cook supper. We were having something simple, but as I prepared it, the meal seemed to be more like pheasant-under-glass with beans almondine or something French I could not pronounce. The younger children were all wound up and tugging at me all the time I was trying to cook. Aha, I got smart though, after the older kids were clean and had their pajamas on, I asked if they would help get the younger kids ready for bed. So, supper was on hold (the correct terminology is probably simmer) while we went upstairs to complete the task. The baby was easy, and with a warm bottle and lots of coochies and hugs, he was off to Mother Goose land. Casey seemed to have the worse time of it; he enjoyed being dirty so much more than being clean. After a change of pajamas for Matthew, and Casey finally IN pajamas, we headed downstairs to eat.

This is when I learned what being responsible for others really meant! After supper, the girls asked if they could stay up and watch Creature Feature with me. Creature Feature had a ghoulish host and always played the old Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff

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