Reel Life

Some days, I feel like I'm living in a movie. I wish the movie was a fairytale like Ever After or even an action babe flick like Tomb Raider but alas I am living in one of those naughty kids movies. You know the kind I'm talking about. The basic premise is that a person, usually of the male persuasion, who is categorically unqualified to care for children ends up in charge of a brood of highly-spirited kids. There is inevitably a montage of crazy child behavior in which the house is trashed and the babysitter collapses in exhaustion. I could write these movies. In fact, I could produce these movies as a documentary. The events which I am about to describe are all true. They all occured today. If you would like to envision how this would play out in a movie, just imagine it all happening in fast forward with wacky music playing in the background.

Dear Hollywood Filmmakers,
As a mother of four active boys I would like to submit the following ideas for your next inept babysitter genre film. I have to say that I highly recommend the combination of four boys aged four and under. I find that they are able to produce maximum chaos which I'm sure audiences everywhere would enjoy.
Scene: morning; the babysitter is trying to get the four-year-old twins ready for preschool
In stead of getting dressed, the twins are running around in their underwear, whipping each other with articles of clothing. The very fussy 10-month-old, who is cutting three teeth, is following the sitter around clutching at her pants and crying. When she tries to intervene in the clothes fight, the twins dive at her ankles yelling, "Get her! Yeah! Trip her!" Meanwhile, the 2-year-old calls out from the kitchen where he is still eating breakfast, "I peed!" The sitter spins around, nearly tripping, and catches the baby just before he enters the kitchen where there is a waterfall of urine cascading down the booster seat, onto the chair and then down to the kitchen floor. (NOTE: if this scene is in the beginning of the movie, this might be a good time for the sitter to just pass out and fall backwards. If this scene is occurring towards the end of the movie then I can give you the details of how I handled this situation with great aplomb. I felt like super mom... until the afternoon.)
Scene: afternoon; the babysitter has just picked up the twins from preschool and has fed everyone lunch. The baby has just been put down for a badly-needed nap and the sitter decides to use this opportunity to give the other three boys haircuts.
The sitter is half-way through cutting the 2-year-old's hair when she hears the baby crying. She runs into the room to find a guilty looking twin standing next to the baby whose face is covered in what are unmistakably cheeto-dust kisses. The holwing orange-faced baby is put in his highchair and the haircuts resume. She finishes the 2-year-old and moves on to the cheeto-lipped twin. Partway through his haircut, the baby wiggles out of the highchair restraints and attempts a nose-dive onto the floor. While the sitter rescues the baby, cheeto twin escapes, runs to the bathroom and tries to use the shower curtain to remove all of the hair clippings from his body. The sitter finds him by following a trail of hair on the floor. When she returns, twin in tow, to the kitchen she discovers that the baby has crawled right through the pile of hair cuttings and now resembles nothing so much as baby Bigfoot or perhaps a well used Swiffer pad. She quickly finishes the second hair cut and decides she may as well keep going despite the messes. The third hair cut is accompanied by cries and screams and requires wrestling holds and packages of fruit snacks in order to get it done. She bathes all four boys who throw tantrums about taking a bath and cause tidal waves of water to splash all over the bathroom floor. At last they are cleaned and dressed and she turns on a show for them to watch. (This may be a good time for a brief sappy moment before any additional chaos. You may wish to have her gaze at the four of them all sitting together on the couch, arms on each other's shoulders. They really are adorable boys.)
With the boys thus occupied, the sitter gets to work on cleaning up all of the hair messes. While she is busy vacuuming the hair off of the shower curtain she hears wild laughter from the living room. She rushes in to find all three of the older boys crawling around with a crayon in each hand, drawing as they go. The wood floors are completely covered in red, blue, green, purple and orange crayola. The baby is laughing too, a crayon dangling out of his mouth like some kind of bizarre cigar. She confiscates the crayons, gets out tissues and demonstrates how they can start rubbing the crayon marks off the floor. Two of them agree, but one twin refuses. She sends him to time out with a glitter-jar timer made out of a plastic peanut-butter jar. Thirty seconds later she hears a suspicious sound. Somehow, the twin has managed to throw the jar with such force and at just the right angle that the brittle plastic of the lid shatters. Glitter, water and karo syrup ooze down into the cracks between the wooden floor boards. Bedding is splattered with the sticky, glitzy concoction. She sends the twin back out to help clean the floors and starts cleaning up this new mess when she hears splashing from the bathroom. The baby has discovered the toilet! and toilet paper! Delightful! She cleans up baby only to turn around and find the second pee puddle of the day. After cleaning and sanitzing the floor, she takes a load of laundry down to the basement to be washed. When she returns the baby is brushing his hair with the vacuum hose brush attachment (There are many possible endings here. The babysitter could have a mental break and start hysterically laughing or crying. The three older boys could pull together and offer the sitter some much needed love and appreciation. The parents could arrive home and the sitter could run away and never return. There is potential for everything from feel-good family movie to horror film. I won't tell you what really happened except that everyone went to bed. Early.)

Please contact me if you have any questions or would like some sample footage.

Sincerely,

Sarah

Compelling stuff, right? If only I could get paid for my starring role...