I did it!

I've been contemplating for a while now... do i continue babysitting through the summer or not? We've got about 5 more weeks to babysit Robbie & Andrew, and when i took the other job, i was told til the end of June... and i was fine with that, but her job appears to be long term now, so i/we had a decision to make. After giving it much thought, i came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to take a break. I know a lot of it is just that the work-load with Robbie is just so tiring that we're all ready for a break... and that, quite possibly, if it was just the other two* it probably wouldn't be too bad. (Last Friday it was just the other two, and it felt like such a manageable/normal-ish kind of day that i thought we could probably keep watching them ~ feeling pretty well "adjusted" by now, and they really aren't all that much work when it's just the two of them).

* key to remember... through the summer we would probably have their older sister here most days as well. She's not a bad kid, but i have found that when all three are here, all three fight more with each other... (we usually have all three for 1/2hr. in the morning before school). So that's something to take into consideration. There would be another "adjustment" to having her here full-time too, but i think we're just ready for a break.

One of our children in particular has grown quite an attitude in the last few weeks (and has done his share of complaining about all the babysitting), and it's been difficult trying to get Brenden's program going strong between running for Robbie... plus I'm seeing areas where my kids are needing some extra one-on-one in their school work... so i believe it's time to take a break, take a step back, re-group and "get back on track?" Lol... and try to do all that during the summer when they want to be outside all the time??

So I had no idea how or when i'd approach it, but when she came to pick up the kids today, it kind of flowed into the conversation and i just said that we've decided to babysit til end of June, but would like the summer off; that my kids need a break. We didn't discuss after the summer... i'm guessing if she finds someone else they'd probably just continue there, but i'd consider having them again in Fall if she needed someone.

I'm kind of sad about it in a way ~ there's a good possibility that if we hadn't tied ourselves down so much with Robbie, the other job probably would've been good to keep long term. But that's where it's at for now. I feel good about the decision overall... and hopefully we make wise use of our break.