Surefire Ways to Be Awesome

Last night I babysat for three very sweet, very energetic kids. I’ve hung out with them before and I’ve always found the experience to be enjoyable but exhausting. People tell me that’s because they aren’t my kids. Maybe.

I watch my friends’ kids on a not infrequent basis and have found that making a small time or money investment prior to the date helps make the night run more smoothly and leads to the kids thinking you’re awesome. Here are my tips for being awesome when you babysit. (All of these apply to kids who can actually play, use markers, etc. Babies think you’re awesome as long as you feed them and change their diapers. Tweens will never think you’re awesome.)

Be Super Heroes
An easy craft to play with kids, and a craft that appeals to active boys, is to create super hero capes. My basic goal is to end up with each kid creating a cape with a letter or emblem fastened to it. If you’re feeling really craft you can create matching sweatbands, which are really just strips of fabric to tie around your head.

This craft takes fabric, felt and glue. I buy a few yards of (the cheapest available) fabric in a few different colors and then a bunch of (cheap) sheets of felt. The capes don’t have to be fancy so no hemming is necessary. Kids can be as creative as they want and then afterwards you can play super heroes around the house.

Be Royalty
A spin on the craft above, and one that is more popular with the ladies, is to create king and queen robes. I buy (very cheap) foam crowns at a craft store along with the abovementioned fabric and felt. Then I buy some sticker jewels and let the kids go nuts. Afterwards you have an evening of playing royalty!

Be a Cheerleader
Last night the plan was to create paper plate holiday … things. Wonder Boy and I bought the kit at Michael’s and were all set. In the end we decided to ditch the craft because we really didn’t have enough time between helping kids finish homework and bedtime to start crafts. What we did do made us just as awesome. We were an enthusiastic audience to 30 minutes of ridiculousness. We watched kids do back flips. We watched as kids hopped on one foot across the room. We listened to incredible lies and played along like we totally believed the tall tales.

My theory behind being awesome is working to create an evening of easy babysitting. Entirely selfish, I know. But if you can achieve creating a night that is novel and fun for the kids you are watching, and easy for you, you really are awesome.