Babysitting

Occasionally Lizzy Muetz and I have the honor of babysitting Timothy and Torie Schmitt. Timothy is 5, Torie is 17 months.
We babysat them on Tuesday. Now, Steven, their dad, was home, but he was working from home. He hoped to be done around noon so he could go mow the lawn and then head out early for a class he was teaching at church.
Lizzy and I took the kids to a local park. It wasn't a baby-friendly park, so I had to follow Torie around, and when she wanted to swing I had to sit her in my lap so we could swing together. So while I had her, Lizzy kept an eye on Timothy. At one point Torie and I were walking over to a tunnel thing that you crawl up to get to the slide. Timothy went running past, and he was running straight at the tunnel. He's taller than the tunnel, and he wasn't ducking down. It was kind of a George of the Jungle "Watch out for that tree!" moment, but I didn't have time to say anything, and Timothy hit his head on the tunnel and ricocheted back. Oops.
He was fine, so we played more and then went home. Now, this whole day Torie was very fussy. Her mom was out of town, so she was probably missing her, and she was tired, and I think she may have been teething, so she was fussy and mostly wanted to be held.
Steven came upstairs from his office to get something to drink, and he said he was having some difficult problem with work. So, he went back down to work on that. The phone rang, and the answering machine picked it up. A woman was saying something about being in the hospital, so Lizzy answered. Apparently Steven's mom had had tuna and went into anaphylactic shock and almost died, so she was in the hospital. This day wasn't going so great so far. We put Torie down for her nap, then Timothy. Torie woke up as Timothy was laying down, so we had about an hour of Torie-only time. It was very pleasant though. She was happy to sit on the couch with us and play with my hair and give us Torie kisses (she just learned to pucker her lips). We took her upstairs to change her diaper, and that's when Timothy got up. He was sitting in the rocking/spinning chair in Tories room while we changed her. He rubbed his eyes and complained that one hurt. We looked, and it was a little red, but we assumed it was from rubbing.
We went back downstairs and Timothy complained again. Now his eye was a little more red and it looked like he had a black eye. He said he hadn't hit his eye on anything. We asked about when he ran into the slide, but he said that was his forehead. I decided to go let Steven know.
I came back from Steven's office, and that quickly Timothy's eye had changed. Now the actual white of his eye was swollen, but not his iris, so it was like a dent in his eye. The outside edge of the white was turning yellow and looked very moist, white the inside edge was still red, and around his eye was like a black eye. So I ran downstairs and told Steven of the sudden change, and he immediately came up the stairs. He said it looked like something may have bit Timothy's eye, and that it was blistering, so they took a trip to Urgent Care. Lizzy and I waited, playing with Torie. When they finally got back, Timothy's eye looked much better. Apparently it was an allergic reaction to something (we don't know what). Timothy was proud to tell me his eye didn't glow (cornea scratch test). So, at this point, Steven obviously hadn't gotten his lawn mowed, and he wasn't leaving particularly early for his class.
Around bedtime, we discovered the that Timothy had hit his head harder than we thought: There was quite the lump on his head, hidden by his hair. So he went to bed with an ice pack, and he was going to be alternating between his forehead and his eye.
What a day!

Trained butterflies?

This weekend I was playing with Timothy after rehearsals. He wanted to play in the rows of seating at the Cheshire Chase stage, and he was holding his spoon (all Ducks have a spoon they decorate. The spoons are approximately 31" long) between the seats to pretend it was a gate. I was supposed to go up to the spoon and say "Here's money for today" and pretend to put money on the spoon. Timothy would then move the spoon so that I could walk through, then he'd run to the next benches to block me. Eventually he decided that I didn't need to give money to the spoons, but I'd have to repeat whatever password he told me.
My very favorite was when he made me say "I'm off to join the trained butterflies and the scarf made the spoon fly to the garbage can" (although he later changed it to "Sam's off to join...." and claimed it was based on the song lyrics "Sam's gone away to join the trained bands". I'm pretty sure it's "I'm", though, and not "Sam's").
It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about with the scarf making the spoon fly, but I eventually understood: He has a piece of woven trim tied around his spoon, and it looks like a mini scarf around the spoon. And apparently scarfs can fly....

After that game we were playing with his spoon pretending it was a gun (we were shooting holes in the clouds, I think). Timothy hung the spoon up and then suddenly said "You have to take the spoon and poke it in your eye and say "ow ow ow ow" until it stings". He then proceeded to demonstrate what he meant, and then told me to try. Although he told me I just had to shove the spoon into my glasses and not my eye.
I'm not really sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but it was still funny.

I'm so glad I get to play his nanny this summer! It's going to be an easy job, and he's so much fun!

**Note**
Contrary to what I previously said, Timothy was in fact correct, and the song goes "Sam's gone away....", not "I'm gone away...."

The Janesville Faire

This past weekend was the Janesville Renaissance Faire, so of course my family (minus my Dad) went up to Janesville.
Jeremy's garb was not finished: All I had done for him was his venetians, flat cap, and shirt. I need help fitting his doublet so he borrowed one from Steven this time.
The weather this year was much nicer than last year! It was warmer and less windy, making for a very pleasant weekend.
My position at the faire this year is the nanny for Timothy and Victoria (my director's children), which I think is going to work out extremely well because Timothy loves to be with me. He was taking me all over the faire, he wanted to see everything! I think his favorite place was the Complete Fool Shop, which has lots of toys out for patrons to play with. There was a hula hoop nearly as tall as me! I was actually able to hula hoop with it! It was surprisingly easy.
I was finally able to hold Victoria without her crying (the past several times I've tried to hold her it's only lasted for a couple minutes)! I held her for quite a while, too.
I was trying to get some buttons done for my new bodice, but I was busy and only managed to finish two buttons, and twice Timothy asked me "Will you make me a button?", so I ended up giving him both of the buttons. He tried making a couple, but his fingers aren't quite that coordinated yet. He had fun trying, though. He'll just have to keep practicing!

Our Trip to Wisconsin

The trip to Wisconsin was a fun one, as usual (Wisconsin can't be un-fun, it's impossible).
We helped with a book swap and moved a lot of girl scout cookies! Stefanie, our dear friend and hostess, is a girl scout leader and her cookie shipment came in on Saturday, so we helped organize the cookies and break up the orders.

I had my Duck bake on Saturday, we made approximately 152 meat pies. I forgot to take pictures of them, so I'll have to do so next time. I mostly rolled and sliced dough, and then watched and played with the very rambunctious Timothy.
My character's occupation this year is the nurse/nanny to Timothy. My director and his wife are very pleased with this occupation choice as it will help them quite a bit! Especially since they have a new baby. It will not be a difficult job at all, Timothy is my best friend and it will be fun watching him! At the Duck bake he used pillows to build a fort and then tried to find a blanket for the roof, but there was no blankets that were big enough, so I promised to bring some old sheets and blankets to BAPA (Bristol Academy of Performing Arts) and when I have free time I'll help Timothy build one awesome blanket fort!

After the Duck bake I went back to Stefanie's house and looked over some of the books; I found a few that I picked out. In fact, my Mom found a lot too, so we ended up bringing more books home than we meant to! But that's the way it is with books.
After the book swap we were able to visit with friends for a while and had an all around fun evening. Although I seemed to be getting a cold. I was fine when we left home, but once we were at Stefanie's house I got all sniffly. We thought it might be cat allergies, but on Saturday evening I started having a little cough and a scratchy throat. Now that I'm home I still have a cough, but my stuffy, itchy nose and itchy eyes are all better, so it may have been part cat allergies and part cold. I guess we'll find out the next time I'm around a cat!
Anyway, we got home on Sunday, back to boring ol' Custer Park.

Monster Egg

My faire director and his wife have two completely adorable kids; Timothy (age 4) and Victoria (age 6 weeks).
At the Duck bake Timothy was being a wild child. He wrestled me to the ground, threw pillows at me, completely covered me in pillows, and then stole my socks. It was hilarious, and I had lots of fun with Timothy, but the funniest thing happened not when I was talking to Timothy, but when I was talking to his parents.
I was telling them about a giant egg I found from my chickens, and I described it as follows- "it was huge, it was like a monster egg!". Timothy turned to me and in a very concerned voice asked "What did you do with the monster?". Everyone started laughing at poor Timothy, who was still wondering about the monster. His mom then explained to him that it was just an expression.
It was so cute!