The past two weeks my parents took a trip to Italy and I was left in charge of my house. This meant laundry, cleaning, cooking meals, but mostly watching my five-year-old brother. Though I have babysat since I was about ten and have been a nanny every summer since I was fifteen, I was unprepared for 12 long days of 24/7 on the clock babysitting. Now I understand that when people have children they love them unconditionally and all that stuff, but wow. That stuff is hard work. Not only did I have to get up, and stay up with him early in the morning I had to remain at least aware of his presence throughout the night in case he needed me or woke up. Not to mention, I then had to spend the day doing things a five year old wants to do. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my brother and I like hanging out with him, but man some of that stuff is boring. This is especially true when it comes to TV shows. Nickelodeon and Disney channel are horrendous in the morning, except for Small Potatoes but that’s for another time.

Over the course of the week I learned a few things. To start, I learned that at this age there are a lot of things I want to do. The simple realization that there were not enough hours in the day, and that I could not take my brother with me everywhere brought this to mind. It didn’t even have to be the big things like going on a trip or a concert, but even just wanting to go to the mall or Target to aimlessly shop became a non-option. Though this did not bring up some epiphany changing moment where I made a bucket list and vowed to make every day count it did make me start to appreciate free time. Not to mention making that free time count. A couple weeks ago I talked about choosing to do something other than watch TV during down time and that became even more evident when down time was few and far between.

I also realized that my parents do a heck of a lot around the house. After living at school on my own for the past three years I though, I understood what it was like to take care of and make a house livable. I was wrong. Living in a college house with a bunch of friends where McDonalds is a respectable breakfast, lunch, and dinner is not the same as living in a real house with kids and groceries. Doing my own laundry once a month when I finally ran out of underwear is not the same as making sure everyone has clothes to wear to school and lunches packed. So of course though I was incredibly jealous that they were traipsing around Italy and annoyed that I was not included, but I was also inclined to thank them. Which of course made me annoyed as ever, but it was necessary.

Two weeks and I am already more responsible. Who knew?