The little one I babysit

Two days a week I get to hang out with one of my favorite people. She is not very talkative, and can be slow to get around sometimes but she is so much fun. The person I'm talking about is the 1 year old I babysit on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Her name is Daisy and she makes my weeks so much better and I look forward to my time with her. I have been babysitting her since June and I am kind of sad that I will graduate in December and move away from her.

But the best part has been watching her grow and become this little person with her own personality. She loves the color blue and anything she can carry around. Her newest favorite toy is the ball that came with the large play kitchen she got for her birthday. Now she does enjoy the kitchen as well, but the blue ball that came with it has traveled all over the house and back. The biggest change has been to watch her master walking and the new freedom that comes with it. She toddles (I now understand what that means haha) around the house like a pro. Two weeks ago she would take like 5 steps and fall down, but yesterday she walked from the kitchen to the front door, down the foyer and into the den without falling once. She has also begun to talk more. It's nothing that can be understood, but she talks up a storm in her own language. It makes me sad that I will not witness her learning to really speak.

Over the summer I would get to spend all day with her, from 9am to 5pm, and it was so much fun. But once school started for both of us my time with her was cut down to afternoons. Now it is nice to have that time to do some homework, but making her laugh and watching her grow is much more rewarding. My boyfriend doesn't understand the wonder of children, especially babies, but then I think that most men don't get it until they have a child. I tip my hat off to all stay-at-home moms because I know that it is hard to do and that most days things are left undone. But you get the experience of being there with your child everyday as they learn and grow into the person they are meant to be.

I would like to think that all of my babysitting experience (all 13years of it) may have prepared me to be a parent to some degree. But I know that it is impossible to ever know all that goes into it until you are one. I want to be a stay-at-home mom for my kids, when I have them. But more than that, I don't want to miss out on my child's first steps or words. I want to be there when it happens, and not have someone else tell me about it when I get off of work. Now I know that it might not be possible for me to stay home and not work, but in my perfect world it will be.