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Giggles By Jones

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Arizona chapter.


Gigs and kids.
I don’t do well with kids. Well maybe that’s not true. I don’t babysit. Something ALWAYS goes wrong when I am around children. I am an only child and while I have an abundance of cousins under the age of 9 I just feel like a failure with children.
The first time I babysat was in high school. My mother always volunteers me for babysitting the kids for the people she works with. For some reason, she decided to tell a woman who had three, not one, three children that I could babysit.
It’s not that I don’t like kids, I just haven’t been around them to know enough about them.
I show up to the house with backup. My friend Nicole who has two younger sisters came with me.
Oh did I mention the children were more like INFANTS!!! There was a 9 month old, a 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old.
The infant was crying the whole time so Nicole who has had experience with that age of child hung out in the nursery the majority of the night.
So it was just me, the 3-year old, and the 5-year-old. We were getting along great, I was reading stories, but when it came time for bed, they were to get “warm milk.”
Long story short, I ended up giving the 3-year-old formula. I know, I shouldn’t be allowed around children.
After this experience I was traumatized and decided to never babysit again. Until once again my mother volunteered me to babysit for her boss.
I brought back up: my friend Irina accompanied me to Calabasas where we were greeted with a surprise. There were ten children. All under the age of 9.
Holy hell. Irina volunteered at a daycare so I wasn’t that worried.
Things started off great, all of the girls thought that I was a star on the Disney channel which I didn’t confirm…. or deny….
We had ice cream, then were to watch a movie. Of course it didn’t happen that way. The screening room (yes there was a movie theatre) DVD player broke, I thought one of the cats that looked like a mountain lions escaped, and I had to call one of the kids parents because he “needed to speak to his mom” who was all the way in Santa Monica.
Shambles.
But the reason I speak of this is because Carms (my mother) offered my skills as a babysitter once again…. When will she realize, I am no Mary Poppins.
-Giggles.

My name is Jessica Cooper and in the Fall I will be a Senior at the University of Arizona. I am majoring in journalism with a dual minor in history and judaic studies. My focus is in both print and online journalism. I have loved being a part of the Her Campus team for the last semester and am so excited to be the campus correspondant for the 2011-2012 year.