Our hero...?

Dakota aka the "Sexy Beast"

I have six children ranging in age from eight to eighteen.  In addition to my six children, I babysit four others ages three to nine.  Some might say that I'm clinically insane, but kids are fairly easy for me...feed them, stop their bleeding, read a story, feed them, wipe what needs wiping, break up an argument,  feed them, shell out some money, negotiate curfews, feed  them. Easy...*yawn*.  Today, however, has been a bit more exciting than most.  We'll start with the bathroom...

We have a bathroom.  Notice I wrote a bathroom.  This was no mistake.  I know that it may be difficult to believe that a family of eight, living in America, would have only one bathroom, but we do, and that bathroom does not have a proper lock.  (I heard that gasp!)  As untenable as the situation may seem, so far it has worked for us.  The fact that the male to female ratio in our family is 5:3 helps, because we also have a backyard and a park with a public restroom, if one must do more than the backyard will allow.  Enter the "extras", the kids that I babysit.  I honestly don't know how many bathrooms they have in their house, but their male to female ratio is 2:4, and I'm pretty sure that their bathroom has a proper lock.  

Jaelyn

Now let me introduce Jaelyn, the youngest female of the kids I babysit.  Jaelyn just turned six, and she's as feisty as they come!  Since the day she entered our home, she has always been a bit uncomfortable with the lock situation and will declare quite loudly that she is going to the bathroom and order us not to let anyone in.  Apparently today there was no one to hear her declaration, so she did what any privacy seeking six year old would do...she used the little red stool (Why, oh, why is the little red stool even in there anymore?!) to reach up and lock the door herself!  But I thought you said you didn't have a lock on your bathroom door...  No, I said that we didn't have a "proper lock" on our bathroom door.  What we do have is a flip lock designed for child proofing and burglars!

Enter Dakota (aka Kody).  Kody is our strapping eighteen-year-old son, affectionately referred to as the "Sexy Beast".  Why?  Well...because he is.  He spends as much time as possible shirtless and flexing, and girls dig him.  I'm sure he will outgrow the shirtlessness someday (my husband did), but probably not the flexing (my husband didn't).  When Kody heard the cries from the bathroom, he did what any eighteen year old would do in such an emergency...he busted in the door.  Our hero!  Fortunately for all of us, the door remained on its hinges and the only real casualty was the lock, which actually fared pretty well.  It's only a little bent.  (So much for "bathroom security"!)

After everyone had finished congratulating Kody for his heroics, he noticed that I was giving him the "stink eye".  He looked at me incredulously and said, "Well, Mom, what would you have done?"  To which I replied, "If she can lock it, she can unlock it.  I would have talked her through the process!"  Brawn vs. brain...go figure! Now, what to do with that little red stool...?

PS:  The day's not over yet...stay tuned for more "Adventures in Babysitting"!