narrative essay

Natalie Sangiacomo

October 1, 2009

Narrative Essay #1

“The Joys of being Babysat and the Horrors of Babysitting”

“Can you and Daddy go out to dinner so a babysitter can watch us?” This was a question I constantly asked my mother as a kid. Throughout my childhood, my parents hired many babysitters to watch over my two sisters, brother, and I on the weekend nights. I would wait anxiously to hear the sound of the doorbell, as I watched my mother put on makeup for a dinner party. When the babysitters arrived, they would hug me, flip me upside down, or tickle me, and I knew instantly it was going to be a fun night. I couldn’t wait for my parents to kiss us goodbye and leave for a couple hours. They knew how excited we were to play with our babysitters, and the last word they would always say when they left the house was “Behave!” My siblings and I were well behaved and always did what my parents told us, so when the door closed; we were ready to do whatever we wanted.

As I grew older, I couldn’t wait to be the fun, crazy, babysitter like I had when I was young. I thought babysitting was an easy responsibility and the babysitters had just as much fun as the kids. Finally, in seventh grade, Mrs. Rizzo, a mother from my grammar school called my home. “Are you free to babysit my three little boys on Friday night?” she asked. My voice went up so high, that I sounded like a teenage boy going through puberty, as I excitingly answered, “Yes!”

I babysat Jack, Nicholas, and Angelo, who were all under the age of ten. At first, I saw them as three adorable little boys with brown hair and brown eyes. I would have never guessed in a million years that when their mother left the house, they would turn into three little monsters.

I first ordered the children pizza, and instead of eating the food, they threw the food. “Were not hungry!” they screamed. Within the first half hour of my babysitting career, I was cleaning cheese pizza off the walls, and wiping their faces and hands off with a paper towel. Jack, Nicholas, and Angelo then decided to have a wrestling match, which resulted in Angelo crying, and Jack’s nose bleeding. It turns out I wasn’t going to be the fun, crazy, babysitter that I imagined. I felt as if I turned into their mother. A timeout was necessary in this case! I dragged each one of them into a separate room to sit and “think about their actions” for ten minutes. However, my attempt to punish them resulted in a complete failure. I then put on a movie, hoping these boys, who seemed to have A.D.D., would finally calm down. Jack complained that he was hungry, since he decided to throw his dinner and not eat it, so I decided to make popcorn. Minutes later, I smelled burnt popcorn coming from the kitchen. I quickly ran to the kitchen, and there was black smoke everywhere! I frantically opened all the windows and doors, to prevent the smoke alarms from going off. For the next hour, I was spraying Lysol and the mother’s perfume so the house wouldn’t smell like a giant ashtray. I finally went back upstairs when I had everything under control. Luckily, the boys were still watching the movie, and didn’t ask about the smell coming from downstairs.

Mrs. Rizzo came home an hour early from her dinner party, and I couldn’t wait to leave and never come back to that house again. I asked her why she came home so early, and she replied, “Nicholas called and told me it smelled like a fire was coming from downstairs.” I was mortified. Right when I thought I had everything under control from a night of pure madness, the little brat throws me right under the bus. I couldn’t believe how these boys behavior changed the instant their mother was home. Mrs. Rizzo wrote me a check, glared at me, and sarcastically said, “Oh and thanks for using my one hundred dollars Joe Malone perfume.” I grabbed my check and ran out of the house with sheer embarrassment. I never received another phone call to babysit again from her or any other mother in my grammar school.

Growing up as a kid, I thought babysitting was all fun and games. It wasn’t until I became the babysitter that I realized it is, but only for the kids. While babysitting Jack, Nicholas, and Angelo I was constantly stressed and worried because numerous things went wrong. However as a child, I felt a sense of freedom that I could do whatever I wanted because an adult wasn’t around. Teenagers usually occupy the jobs to babysit children. I don’t know what I was doing babysitting three little kids in seventh grade. I was practically a kid myself.