Dear Babysitter: Welcome to the Inner Sanctum of Hades

Dear Molly (or is it Mandy?),

Welcome to my home! I am quickly jotting down a few notes since it’s now 6:13 P.M., my party starts at 6:15 P.M., and your boyfriend was going to drop you off at my house at 6:00 P.M. But that’s OK. No one is watching the clock. (6:16 P.M.)

We’ll be at my office’s Winter Solstice Celebration, previously known as our office Holiday Party until Janice in accounting (whose desk is currently adorned with a miniature Christmas tree that sings “O Holy Night” and a snow globe of Santa) decided that “Holiday Party” sounded offensive to “those of us who might not celebrate the holidays,” and HR changed it to Winter Solstice Celebration and banned any red and green clothing. There went my amazing red sequined dress that I found on sale at Off Saks in October, the only dress I’ve found so far that successfully camouflages my baby belly that’s still hanging around.

I was relieved you could come tonight. My CPR-trained niece, who is currently working on her undergrad in early childhood education, canceled on me this afternoon because, according to her text, “Got invite from tots cutie Sigma Chi 4 date of lifetime. Super sorry!!! xoxo!!!!” so I was seriously scrambling. My neighbor’s cousin said you’d babysat for them once when she ran to the grocery store while her baby was napping. I would love to have skipped the party all together and sat on my couch in my husband’s pajama pants eating raw gingerbread cookie dough. However, my boss likes to analyze his employees and their spouses at the Christmas party—I mean Winter Solstice Celebration—and I’m currently up against Keith for a promotion.

Keith, who didn’t have a baby four months ago. Keith, who is single and would sleep at the office given the choice. Keith, who may or may not be the biggest brown-noser bouche dag in the company. Keith, who is totally underqualified but has been schmoozing my boss since the minute I went on maternity leave in hopes of snagging this job out from under me. Keith, the current bane of my existence. But, I digress… I’m thrilled you’re here, Morgan, although I was also a little surprised when I later found out you were 14 and this is actually your second time to ever babysit. So I just wanted to be sure I cover everything you need to know while we’re gone tonight in case we don’t have time once you arrive (it’s now 6:21 P.M.).

Mindy, I know you will find sheer delight from watching my three children tonight. They have often been described as “high-spirited,” “strong-willed,” and “full of energy,” which should be loads of fun for someone young and energetic like I’m sure you are!

My six-year-old is Stella. She’s fiercely smart and currently obsessed with science. She is in the GT program in first grade, and her wonderful science teacher introduced the class to hydrogen peroxide experiments and showed how they can create explosives. That being said, we now have to keep all of the hydrogen peroxide in the house under padlock. Unbeknownst to me, she somehow managed to continue making volcanoes in the living room, hence the crustiness on the couch. She also loves “cracking codes” and will concentrate intensely on getting the padlock open. It’s only happened six times despite the fact that we keep changing the lock code. Don’t worry, she’s only figured out the first two numbers of the new one so far.

There’s a DiGiornio pizza in the oven for Stella that should be ready in about 15 minutes. She only likes pepperoni pizza, but you’ll need to pick off all of the pepperonis before giving it to her. She prefers to see the indentions that the pepperonis made while the pizza was baking and likes the taste of them once they are gone but prefers not to see the pizza with the pepperonis on it before eating it. If she sees the pepperonis before you pick them off of the pizza, you’ll need to get a new pizza out of the freezer and start the process over again.

James is the three-year-old and loves art, as you can tell by the Sharpie artwork currently gracing the walls as you go upstairs. The Sharpies are also under padlock with the hydrogen peroxide. James only eats red foods, so I’ve added a little red food coloring to his milk, noodles, apple (with the red skin peeled off because it’s not the right kind of red), and chicken. Just a warning, red food dye causes increased hyperactivity in James, so you might be careful about letting him close to the Christmas tree about 20 minutes after dinner. You’ll notice the broken glass ornaments on the tree courtesy of our friend, red food dye. We also just started potty training yesterday, hence the lack of pants or underwear. We’re trying the three-day method, so there’s an egg timer on the counter. It’ll go off every 10 minutes, when you’ll need to run James to sit on the potty and sing, “Pee pee in the pot-tay! Pee pee in the pot-tay! Hey!”

Piper, the baby (actually, we just call her Baby), will need a bottle just after the kids finish eating. She’s a little hard to burp. The best way to get her to burp is to do the two-step in the living room while rubbing her back with your left hand in a counter-clockwise circular motion. I’ll warn you: Baby is a touch colicky. It usually flairs up just after her feeding and only lasts for a little over an hour-and-a-half. If you go in a dark room and bounce while shushing in her ear, it helps to relieve her screaming.

The kids will need baths tonight, but James doesn’t like being in water. You’ll need to strip him down and just sponge-bathe him while he stands by the tub. Stella is finishing her lice treatment, so after her bath you’ll need to soak her hair in the lice oil and use the special comb through her hair to make sure there aren’t any eggs. You can wrap her head in plastic wrap so that her pillow doesn’t get all oily.

For bedtime, Stella likes to have nine books read to her and then will need to be tucked in “like a burrito.” We still don’t know what that means, so if you figure it out, can you please tell me once we get home? And James will need to have his forehead gently rubbed until he falls asleep. But he doesn’t like Baby to be in the room so be sure you get Baby to sleep before you put either Stella or James down. Hopefully Baby’s colic will have died down by then.

If all else fails, Macy, I have eight episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on DVR. Turn it on and get lost in your text messages and Facebook. That’s what I do to cope. But wait, is it SnapChat you kids are into these days? Oh, I can’t even keep up. I promise I used to be cool, Mabel!

Oh, I think I see your boyfriend’s car lights in the driveway now (6:38 P.M.). Misty, is he 19? Wow, that’s quite an age difference! I wish you the best of luck tonight, and don’t worry, I’ll have my phone at coat check all night and will slip back to check it from time to time should you need anything.

Many thanks,

A mom who plans to tip you generously at the end of the night