Wow! Big kids are so much more work!

I know that I have been a teacher, and have even taught 3rd graders, but having a 3rd and 4th grader at my house today and for the rest of the week is a little challenging.

It probably wouldn't be if I had more stuff for them to do...but I have baby stuff, and 2-5 year old stuff, not 8-10 year old stuff. They brought their ds's and ironically I barely even know what that is, and each of them had a book or a cross word puzzle thing. But did they want to do either of those things?

No! They wanted to run up and down my stairs, run around my kitchen, dining room and living room...there is a wall that makes it a huge circle.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids. And I like these kids. But wow it was crazy here today! The hardest part was that they wanted to put their hands in Marlees face all day, touching her everywhere, and just generally wanting to be right in her face. I had to explain a few times that she is a little person too, and that just because she has a cute little nose that it is not fun for her to have it poked at all day long. The other little girl I babysit, who is 9 months old, really took to the boy, and was intrigued by the girl, but the girl wanted to hold her, carry her and everything else with her the whole time too. The baby girl, didn't want it, so again I had to explain to her that she likes learning how to do things on her own. She doesn't want to be held all day long, and forced to either stand when she doesn't want to, or to be put in certain positions (flying inthe air).

So if you have any fun ideas for these kids...I have them all week (and I will have them this summer too) I would greatly appreciate it! Tomorrow we are headed to the pool. But their parents can't afford for them to go to the pool every day, and I am not paying it. So if you have any good, fun, quieter ideas I would love to hear them!

I have some ideas-like they have to read for 30 minutes each day (part of a school requirement, and part of my requirement). I don't want them playing video games and watching tv all day long.


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Okay and now for some fun stuff about Marlee. She has just recently (yesterday to be exact) started noticing that she is in the mirror. She talks, smiles, and makes funny faces to herself. She is very funny to watch. Unfortunately I can't ever seem to get all the cute stuff on video as well as I would like, but Grandma's and Grandpa's look at this blog, so I am going to post two different videos...one of Marlee talking to herself in the mirror, and one of her pushing up on her belly. (My mom and her boyfriend don't live here, so they don't get to see her as much-so bare with me!). Oh and don't mind how shaky it is, I am using my camera video because the video camera we got for Christmas, I can't get to download to my computer, even though that's exactly what it's supposed to do.