Worst. Babysitting Experience. EVER.

Okay, so normally I try to just post happy/funny/random/profound things on this blog. BUT last night was sooo frustrating, that I feel the need to tell everyone exactly what happened. And actually, there's a good chance it will turn out to be a funny story because it has to do with none other than more Kayla-deficient technology....

So, last night I was babysitting, as I often do. I mean seriously. I babysit a lot. Well, sometimes. It kind of comes in spurts. Like, there will be several weeks in a row where I babysit 2-3 times a week, and then there will be several weeks where I don't babysit at all.

Anyway, on to the story. I was babysitting a little 3-year-old girl that I probably babysit more than any other child. I usually don't have any problems with her. She did go through this one phase of, like, separation anxiety or something when she would randomly start crying because she missed her parents. But me, being the super-sitter that I am, figured out the cure for that: singing Old McDonald Had A Farm, over and over and over....

That phase didn't last long though. It was over almost as quickly as it started. But last night...I don't know WHAT happened...but she randomly started crying about 2 hours in.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

"I don't know," she would reply. And then promptly stop crying.

"Do you want to play with your computer?" I suggested. She has a click-start Leap Frog computer or something. She was happy with that suggestion so we started it up, and I went to go make myself some toast because I had forgotten to eat dinner before I came. While I'm making toast, she walks in and says, "I'm tired!"

I look at the clock. It's 7. Her bed time is 9. I don't feel authorized to put her to bed THAT early, so I suggest she keep playing with her computer. She sits down but does nothing with it. She says she doesn't want to play it anymore. So I suggest watching a movie.

She likes this idea! Yay! A happy camper. So we pick out a VHS (or an old school video, in case you read that and went "what?") and I go put it in the VCR. As a side note, I have ALWAYS been able to work their TV in the past. But now, it's not working.

After trying various things to get it to work, I switch to a DVD. Well, guess what? The DVD player won't open. I try for a few minutes, then decide to try a different VHS. Still doesn't work. Try the DVD player again. Nope. The little girl starts crying. Fantastic.

Wait! I have a brilliantly ingenious idea! You can watch DVDs on laptops. They have a laptop. I have a DVD. Fantastic! I locate the laptops (there's two). This is so going to work and the kid will be happy and I can eat my toast that is still sitting on the kitchen counter.

Well...for some unknown reason that makes absolutely NO sense to me, the laptops wouldn't play the DVD. Neither of them. I tried both. TWICE. They wouldn't play it. I tried EVERYTHING. I opened 3 different programs on the laptops that should be able to play DVDs and I couldn't get anything to work.

At this point, the girl is FLIPPING out because she wants to watch Blue's Clues, which halfway through switched to Veggie Tales just making my life more difficult, and I'm frustrated and about to throw these laptops against the wall along with the VCR and the DVD player. But I refrain, because these items do not belong to me.

So, like I said, she's freaking out which stresses me out even more and I'm trying so hard not to yell at the poor child. I keep asking her why she's crying and all I get is "I don't know!"

I'm not even kidding, I was about to start crying. Seemed like the easiest solution at this point.

And normally, this would be the part where I tell you how I saved the day and fixed the laptop, we watched Veggie Tales and everyone lived happily ever after. But alas, that is not what happened. Instead, I gave up. Yep. I put the laptops away and the movies away and I said, "Okay, we're not watching a movie."

She wasn't happy.

Now this is the part where I save the day. She wanted to watch Veggie Tales so much, but we couldn't. So this is where my second brilliantly ingenious idea of the night comes in. I remember they have a Veggie Tales CD. Sooo I find it with my awesome scavenger hunt skills, pop it in the CD player (which is apparently the only technological item that is not part of the technology conspiracy against me), and she remains happy until bedtime.

Win.

So now it's an hour later, I've acquired a headache, and I still haven't eaten my toast. But at least the little girl was happy and there was no more crying--from either of us--the rest of the night.

I hope that ending was happy enough for you, because that's all I've got.

May all your babysitting adventures go much smoother than mine did last night.