A couple of weeks ago we had a team meeting. We try to fit in a meeting like this, no kids, with our friends/teammates every so often. This one was being squeezed into an afternoon where 4 of the 7 kids were at school the two littlest sleeping, and Sophia home doing some home school work.
Neither one of our families happened to have a house helper that day, which is usually how we get this scheduled. So....instead, we hired Sophia to babysit Gabrielle while we walked two buildings down to our meeting. I thought G would give us another full hour of her nap, but she didn't. She was awake before we left. We also left my phone with Sophia so she could call if she needed us.
She did call. About five times.
"I am lonely, when are you coming back?"
"Gabrielle is pulling all the tissue apart."
To that I responded: "you can't let her, this is like being a mom, she will not like it, but take it from her."
"I tried and she pulled my hair." (I am laughing).
We did end up having a decently uninterrupted time and Sophia learned a lot, and earned 10kuai/hour, 20 yuan, which she thought was a lot ($3.25).
She said she tried texting me, I wasn't sure she did it right, but then remembered that for some crazy reason David and I cannot text each other (also when someone calls his number mine rings as well) and I can get texts from people texting him and vice versa. It has something to do with the iphone set up, etc. I have no idea but we have not had time to get to the bottom of it.
Either way, Sophia was texting me correctly and wrote me about 5 really funny/sweet notes, and sent a picture. I discovered she sent the picture a day later and was shocked because she doesn't have 'screen time' or anything, and figured out how to do that all on her own. I had never sent a picture before. But she did it, then David taught me how to do it so I could be up to speed with our 7-year-old.
Here are some of her texts and a picture of Gabrielle wreaking havoc with tissue paper. Classic.
Good job babysitting, Sophia!!!
