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I Was Only Babysitting

To know the difference between right and wrong is so minor in most people's eyes, but in the mind of a small child, it can be clouded.

By Lena RaiPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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To know the difference between right and wrong is so minor in most peoples eyes, but in the mind of a small child it can be clouded. The intellectual hold a child has with their curiosity alone can bring an adult to their knees. I know these are big words from just a teenage girl, but all I can speak of is what I've seen with my own eyes. A child only knows what they are shown growing up. This is my belief only. So what could I have shown him?

I helped raise him in my own little mind. His little preemie self was so harmless back then. Changing diapers and bottle feeding was an everyday task that became our little bit of time together. Watching him grow day by day learning how to walk and talk, I almost became jealous with my the speed of his development. Being a preemie, he was supposed to need more help than most and be slower to learn basic tasks.

When I watched him in the hours I would babysit, it was not hard to play games with him. All you had to do was show him once and before you knew it, he practically did it better than you. I started with basics like Go Fish and when he seemed to get bored of that, I moved on to Old Maid. This only worked for a while and then he was bored again.

Eventually he was picking up books and seemed to really try to understand what was on the pages. I loved to read so this was perfect to me. Every day when Mom would go to work after I got home from school, she'd go through the usual to do list and kiss us both goodbye. That's when I would get started on my to do list as she walked out the door. I always placed my little brother, Tyrance, in the play pen sitting in the living room so I could see him clearly as I began my kitchen clean up.

I can't count how many times I got really into my dishes with my music blasting and when I looked over to check on my little precious, he'd be out of his pen. Somehow he'd crawled out and found a book and started looking through the pages. I never let Mother know since I didn't want her worrying that I wasn't responsible enough to watch little diaper man.

Most of the time, I would turn my music down and take a break from my dishes to enthuse my very curious brother. In my lap, he'd go and I would begin explaining the book to him. After a good few times of the same book being explained, I began reading to him. He'd sit patiently for a while listening and then he'd either try to turn the page or point to a specific word on the page. This happened many times over a good period of time.

I wasn't really thinking much into it at the time, but I was reading true stories of crime to my little man. There was no swearing or anything like that. I wasn't into gore either so it really didn't trigger that I was doing anything wrong. I was just spending time with my little brother doing what i enjoyed the most.

I was an avid reader and went through many phases of things I like to read. I tried fantasy and love novels, but they truly bored me in all aspects. I did find myself reading some Stephen King a time or two but not that often. I would would spend so many hours reading that before I knew it, Tyrance would be asleep and mom would be calling to check on us.

I was very glad that she did this since she always called two hours into her shift and two hours before leaving. There was a time when I must have missed her first phone call and I didn't realize it. I was very deep into my book about the life of a serial killer and once again I had laid my sleepy head for what I thought was a nap and Mom walked in.

Hysterically shouting, "Georgina what is he doing?" I glanced over as she was running to the kitchen to grab him from the knife drawer. By the time apologies were trailing from my mouth, she had already grabbed Mr. Curiosity from the bucket pushed up to the counter he used to reach the knife drawer.

"I swear, Mom, he was just in his play pen sleeping." My words sounded unbelievable even to myself.

How long had I been reading this book? Why had I allowed it to take my entire attention away from my little brother? I really didn't realize it was that big of a deal reading more than one chapter. I knew the little boy was becoming smart, but I guess I underestimated how much.

Mother did her usual loving embrace and talked to Tyrance to explain what was wrong about his actions as she bounced him up and down hushing him from his emotional shock of her grabbing him so fast. I continued to question myself and verbally attack myself for not realizing just how smart he'd become in the small amount of time he was on his little earth. We continued to have several more close calls through the many months that followed. It got to the point where I couldn't even have me time or focus on anything but him even if he was sleeping. I hate to say it but I can honestly say I began to develop a bit of haste for my responsibility of watching him. A little hatred you could say as time went by.

His intelligence climbed so fast he was talking short sentences in no time. Was I wrong for being so negative towards the little man for getting my in trouble every time I turned around? How was I supposed to know he was going to begin understanding my conversations with my friends on the phone? I didn't actually mean it when I said I hated him. I was just angry and in disbelief that he was mentally excelling so fast. He didn't really understand me right?

My book reading became a time for him to listen and draw as he got older. The pictures I admit were getting a little scary. I tried not to pay much attention to it since he was just a kid. His stick figures seemed to throw things a lot. Each of us had a play in his drawings, but Mom was usually waving in a window or something. My reading came in smaller and smaller spurts of misinterpreted mystery as I continued to pay real close attention to Tyrance's drawings that he seemed so happy and proud of. I felt my irritation growing with each drawing as he would use more and more colors of the spectrum focusing on red and scribbling my character a lot.

I tried to offer to draw with him hoping to maybe change his focus to something more positive and of course he threw a huge loud screaming kicking fit. He started throwing things and when I tried to grab him and keep him from hurting himself, he went into such an intense fight he stabbed me with a color pencil he had grabbed to throw.

When I brought attention to my “owie” Tyrance stopped his fit and turned around to observe my problem which I was so upset about. His eyes focused real hard on my reaction of covering it and trying not to cry from the pain. It didn't go real deep but it definitely left a mark. When I tried to get up to go take care of it, Tyrance would grab me and try to see the wound glancing at my eyes each time I pushed him from it. His peculiarity with my open wound brought his fit completely down and actually must have inspired him to go back to his drawing.

I got up to take care of the war wound and mentally noted his cognitive state deciding whether or not I was going to let mom know or not. Maybe this was a sign his intelligence ran a lot deeper than we both realized. Maybe this was just a kid being a kid... curious?

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