Babysitting

You might wonder, and quite reasonably, why I would post about babysitting. Hmm, well, knitting will come up.

Last Saturday, I babysat my friends' kids, a seven-year-old boy, Tevin, and five-year-old girl, Naya. They're sweet kids with a great deal of curiosity and seemingly boundless energy.

Everything went fine until bedtime. Now, I know that saying "time for bed" equates to "let's play and wind ourselves up" for a lot of children. These two were no exception. However, three hours later I was still trying to get them to stop bouncing on their beds and stay in their bedroom.

After one of innumerable "good nights," I sat down in the dining room and started casting on a scarf. Several minutes later, Naya came in and asked what I was doing. I told her I was knitting a scarf. Her brother showed up and asked the same question. I repeated my answer.

Naya then told me that I should knit her a bear. She instructed, with hand gestures, that when I finish it, I should put it in a box and wrap it so that she could then unwrap it and open the box and find her present.

Tevin informed me I needed to knit a dragon for him. He pulled out one of his magic and dragon books. (He had shown me the volumes earlier after I said I was going to use a sleep spell on them to make them go to bed. He pointed out that there weren't any sleep spells in his books, so I couldn't use one on them. Sigh.) Flipping pages, he found the dragon he wanted me to knit. It's green and has a straight tail and neck. I am to make the feet exactly as illustrated. I told him I would try. He said, "Do your best."

And on yet another return visit to the dining room, Naya announced that if I finished her bear before I left (I appreciate her confidence in my knitting speed), I was to hide it behind something on the table, so she wouldn't see it.

I have a lot of knitting to do.