For some reason, I'm having a lot of epiphanies when it comes to children. Like, these are things I knew ahead of time but the concepts didn't sink in. For instance, I realized a couple months ago that when you have children, you can never unhave children. You are a parent for the rest of your life and so for the rest of your life there will be at least one person you are constantly worrying about. You will never be able to go back to that person who was carefree and had no responsibilities. Even when your kids are at Grandma's house (and you trust your mom totally), you will still be thinking about them and worrying about them because that's what you do now. How did this not sink in earlier? My theory is because whenever I got tired of daydreaming I was a parent, I just went back to my daydreams of the single days, not realizing as a parent I wouldn't be able to do that.
My new epiphany came from babysitting a bunch of nights in a row. I've been going to bed earlier lately, thus these past couple jobs I've become tired and almost fallen asleep which is probably the worst thing you can do as a babysitter. The babysitter is there to dial 911. You can't dial 911 if you're asleep. I had a real problem with staying up late when I was younger and had actually fallen asleep with the kids to have the parents come home and wake me up. I am not kidding. So this lesson has really drilled into me.
Imagine my shock when I realized every night when the kids are asleep, the parents go to sleep too. No one is awake to dial 911 or be at the ready should a kid wake up in the night and go downstairs to get some water, standing on their step stool to fill their cup at the sink, slip, and hit their head on the floor/counter (I actually just came up with that whole scenario right this second). The parents, guardians, people who are supposed to be watching the kids are asleep! The kids are unsupervised!
My next thought? How do they do that?
I can just imagine me becoming a new parent with my new infant and having a doctor tell me to sleep when my baby sleeps. Sleep? How am I supposed to be prepared when something bad happens? What if I'm so exhausted I don't wake up to hear the baby gagging? What if the baby just stops breathing and I'm right next to the kid on the couch sleeping as my baby chokes for air?! Sleep?? You want me to sleep?! Is there someone else taking over my shift?!
This new epiphany just furthers my new resolve to not have kids for a very, very long time.
Seriously, how do you guys do that?
