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Emergency Babysitting

My wife called me this morning at 8:45 am (about 10 minutes before class) to tell me that our babysitter hurt her back and could not watch our daughter for the day. She also told me that she had an all-morning meeting at her job, so she couldn't take her in with her to her place of work.

(Side note: Normally my cell phone does not work in the school building, but every once in a while my wife manages to get through to me and every time it seems to be something important/pressing)

Thinking on my feet, I made some calculations and decided that she should drop my daughter off at the school and I would watch her for the day. I only had two classes to teach and I already knew that my first-period class was going to be working on an in-class assignment (which would give me some time to plan for my third-period class).

I informed my class (freshmen) that she would be coming in warned them that, under no circumstances should they look at or talk to my daughter while she was in the classroom (she doesn't really do well with new people). I explained to them their assignments and they got to work even before my daughter arrived (they actually did really with the situation and were very mature and understanding about it).

My daughter arrived at 9:10 am and proceeded to spend her time coloring and watching Barney on YouTube (which, amazingly, was still unblocked since the release of Brandon's "Chinese Food on Christmas"). The enabled me to wander around the classroom helping students with any questions that they might have had, and the class ran as it probably would have had she not been there.

When that class was over (10 am) I had a one hour break to prep for the next clas. We headed down to the preschool area and got some books, puzzles and crayons to entertain Elana and keep her bust. I loaded them all into my laptop cart (finally found a use for it), put Elana on top and wheeled around the school in search of Laura. She was able to hook me up with a limited-teaching lesson plan that I then gave to my junior class. Although they struggled a little more than the freshmen at keeping their focus, they did an admirable job and I thanked them for their cooperation.

Since that was my last class of the day, I was able to leave school early (12:25 pm). I called my wife and we met up at the Bistro for lunch. Unfortunately, by the time I got there we only had about 20 minutes to eat because my daughter had a doctor's appointment at 1 pm. I didn't have to leave my wife alone, though, because Ila walked in with Dasi a few minutes before, so my wife just joined them.

The doctor's visit was pretty quick. It was her 2 year check up (and, for the first time that I can remember - she didn't have an ear infection) so things went pretty fast. My daughter, of course, cried through the whole thing (despite the fact that she had watched the Barney video "The Doctor is In" numerous times that morning and in the preceding weeks in anticipation of this visit), but was placated with promises of lollipops, chips and stickers.

We got home at 2:30 pm and I stuck her in for a nap.

She's sleeping right now.

My wife said that I did a good job and that I would get to relax tonight.

Comments

Deborah Langer said…
hello. loved catching up on your blog. so full of suspense - did you get to relax?

Sorry we missed you in Toronto... maybe our paths will cross again in TO or here in the holyland! Or we could all become misphachot at Stone.. ya never know.

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