Sunday, September 21, 2008

Explanation of my Absence.



Well I bet some of you have been wondering where I have been!

Anyone? No!

Well I will tell you anyway because this is my blog!

I started my Nanny position on Friday evening! I am so excited to finally be bringing in an income again. As I explained before, the nanny job is for a friend from class. She has two sons, a 16 year old with down's syndrome and a 9 year old. We shall call them Mr. C and Lil Z respectively. Now Lil Z is the easy one, he is only 9 but he has grown far more than his years and he is my little helper. Mr. C is the real reason that I am there. Most of the time he is really easy though. I pick up after him and make him some dinner but otherwise he doesn't require much. Friday night was an easy night.

Last night however was a tough night. Mr. C decided to test his boundaries last night and I felt the strain. Things started off ok until he put in a sponge bob dvd to watch. The sponge bob episode that we were watching had sponge bob splitting his pants and showing everyone his butt. Now Mr. C likes to play a game where he copy's what he sees. So he kept getting up and showing me his butt. When that didn't get a reaction from me, he pulled his pants down and mooned me. Then he turned around and sat down on the sofa with his pants and underwear around his ankles. 45 minutes later Lil Z and I finally got him to put his cloths back on. That was the first test and I am not really sure who won that one.

Later on Mr. C fell asleep on the couch and I thought he was out so I went to clean up his room. I had only been in there a few moments when I heard him get up from the couch and walk through the kitchen. I poked my head out of his room to see where he was headed and saw him go into his mom's room. The boys like to go in there and sleep when their mom isn't home so I didn't think anything of it and went back to what I was doing. After a few more minutes I heard a weird noise in the kitchen and looked out to see what it was. Mr. C had a suit case and was heading into the living room. Now I have to admit that my curiosity was piqued a little so I followed him. He went through the living room and out the front door onto the porch where he stopped for a minute. I turned to Lil Z who was watching a movie and joked that "it looks like your brother is running away". It didn't occur to me that he actually would run, but when I turned back to the porch after making the joke to Lil Z, Mr. C was in fact running and he was dragging that suit case behind him.

At the end of the road that they live on is a big field, which of course is where Mr. C was headed. I started walking after him at first because I didn't want him to spook and started calling his name. He ran faster. Now I was running too but he had a significant head start. When he went into the field I knew that it was going to be a long chase. Mr. C was struggling and falling and still keeping ahead of me.

Did I mention that this field was a wheat field and that it was muddy and had furrows of water that was up to my knees. The wheat was waist deep and I kept getting tangled in it. I was struggling!

Apparently Mr. C was struggling too because the suit case dropped into a particularly deep furrow of water and Mr. C decided to go on without it. This was not good news for me because that was the main thing slowing him to a managable pace. Without the suit case to hinder him he took off across this field at an amazing speed. I was doing good to keep moving forward as I was constantly off balance and kept falling into unseen furrows. The chase went on for about 20 minutes. We eventually left the wheat field and ended up in someones back yard. Mr. C took off running even fast and I tried to run after him but I was starting to feel exhausted from the difficulty and speed that we had already been maintaining. He came to a road and turned to run down it. I was struggling to keep going at this point! Then he stopped and looked at me. He stood there for a few minutes until I had almost caught up to him. He was smiling the biggest smile and I knew then that this was not over. He thought we where playing a game.

When I was about 20 feet away from him he took off down the road, made a left turn and headed back into that dang wheat field! I wanted to cry! I was already exhausted and I was going to have to make it through that field again. I sighed deeply and then headed back into the field. I knew that if I stayed as close to him as I could and as long as I could still see him that I would eventually catch him. This plan backfired when Mr. C made a right turn around a wooded area and vanished. I tried to pick up the pace but by the time I got there Mr. C was nowhere to be seen.

Now I was panicking. The wheat was so high that if he fell I would not see him and there where woods surrounding me on two sides. I had no idea where he was at. This is when I decided to call 911. As I was describing Mr. C to the operator I heard a splash and a laugh behind me. He had hidden in the woods and I had walked right by him without seeing him. I took off running after him and calling his name. " I have the police on the phone and if you don't stop they will have to come looking for you." I called after him. This statement stopped him in his tracks and I caught up to him and took his arm and told him that he had made a very unwise choice and that he was in big trouble.

As I was lecturing him I heard a voice in my ear and realized that the 911 operator was still on the line. I thanked her and said that I had him. Then I put my phone away and took Mr. C's hand for the journey home. He kept falling to his knees and saying that he was tired and couldn't walk anymore. "You made me chase you all the way out here, you are going to walk all the way back. I don't want to hear what you can't do. Just get up and do it!" I spent the whole walk explaining to him that he was in trouble and he was not going to be able to go outside tomorrow and that privilages might be taken away next weekend also. We met up with Lil Z and a neighbor on the way back and we all started searching for the suit case. When we found it and got out of the field I asked Lil Z to open it and see what Mr. C was taking with him on his little adventure.

Notebooks! Brand spanking new notebooks was all that was in the suit case. 26 of them to be exact. Maybe he figured that he could write about his trip?

Mr. C took a shower and went straight to his room and I spent some time trying to salvage my pants and my running shoes. I think the pants will be ok but the shoes are not salvageable. 100 dollars that I will never see again. Lil Z cracked me up when he told his brother "Your grounded Mr.!"

I learned a few lessons from my time with Mr. C yesterday.
First, know what he is watching in case he decides to mimick it.
Second, never let him get more than ten feet away when he is outside.
Third, don't wear 100 dollar shoes to my nanny job.
Finally, have extra cloths and shoes in my trunk in case of emergencies.

Yesterdays experience also gave me a new inspiration to get fit. I want to be able to catch that little bugger if I have to!

One other test I went through last night didn't even involve Mr. C. There dog Tank took off twice last night forcing Lil Z and I to chase after him. Yeah, it was an aerobic kind of night. No gym required!

Well I had better get into the shower and head over for another day of chasing Mr. C. Wish me luck!

Happy Training,
Love Jenn

5 comments:

MizFit said...

um, wow? (and not just because the only 100 dollar pair of shoes I own are my adored MBTs :))

and my black lab (RIP) used to run off a LOT and I clearly recall having those moments of:

hmmm. me EXHAUSTED. can I find the motivation to chase you?

(hadnt thought of the aerobic bonus :))

Miz.

Betty said...

Good luck! And another good luck for some good luck! :) I admire you, for not giving up and for taking on this challenge!!
Will be thinking of you!

Marcy said...

OMG!! Wow, I'm tired just reading that. No joke you got a workout without need a gym! DANG GIRL!

L.A. Daze said...

That sounds like a really tough job! But hey, you get to work out while you're working! I hope things go better today.

Vickie said...

While its not a good thing for Mr. C to be running around in the dark and causing you grief, the upside is you did get in a pretty good workout! You'll get in shape in no time at this rate!