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So far, JJ's day had been relatively relaxed. He slept well the previous night, his tea wasn't too hot, and he didn't have many chores to do. So he picked out one of his favorite books and was reading in his armchair. Then he got a text from Chase,
'hey jamie i know this is out of the blue but something urgent came up and i dont have anyone to watch the kids is it ok if i drop them off with you'
Of course he agreed, he had to, but now he was starting to second guess his decision. He had been around Lily and Gavin on multiple occasions, he even started teaching them some signs, and it seemed like they had fun with him. But he didn't know the first thing about babysitting. He didn't exactly have anything entertaining for a five and seven year old. Any games he had were word games: Boggle, Scrabble, Crosswords, Word Searches, nothing intriguing for young children. He didn't even have a TV for goodness sake!
Then there was a knock on the door. He sprung up, swung the door open and was greeted by tiny arms wrapping around his legs,
"Thank you so so much," Chase started semi-frantically "I didn't think to pack them anything until I was half way here-" JJ cut him off by waving his hand to shoo him away, he nodded
"Thank you!" He called over his shoulder, rushing to his car. JJ ushered the kids inside and guided them to the living room. For a while they were entertained by drawing in a notebook with colored pens, but eventually they grew bored,
"Uncle Jamie," the youngest asked "do you have anything to play with?" JJ felt a pang of guilt but shook his head, signing "sorry"
"You don't have any toys?" Gavin asked, JJ was about to shake his head "no" again, but had a eureka moment. He stood and waved at the kids to follow him up the stairs. How could he have forgotten about the attic!
Though it was dusty, it was dry and brightly lit thanks to the large windows on either end, and most importantly: full of old toys.
The kids spent a good forty minutes to an hour looking through boxes and excitedly toying with their discoveries while JJ sat in an old rocking chair. Until, that is, they pushed aside a couple boxes to find a different weird looking box with strange dolls inside of it,
"Uncle Jamie," Gavin called "what's this?" Curious, JJ made his way through the maze of boxes to kneal next to the children, his eyes lit up when he realized what they were looking at. He lifted the box gingerly and brought it to a clearing in the box jungle, setting it between him and the children, sitting down and motioning for them to do the same.
He picked up the big wooden X's, the puppets followed. Their bodies were made of smooth wooden shapes, their hair was string, their faces were painted and they had sewn fabric clothes. One resembled a woman in a flowery dress and sunhat and the other a man in a navy vest and black felted pants. By tilting the handles the toys waved at the kids who giggled, fascinated,
"What are they for?" Gavin asked. Hanging the handles over the back of the box, JJ signed "story"
"What kind of story?" JJ thought for a moment before signing "you make story". Unfortunately, they had forgotten the sign for "make" so they had to play charades, which became a competition of who could guess first,
"We think the story?" Lily tried,
"We make it up!" Gavin half-shouted. JJ nodded excitedly and picked up the puppets. They both thought for a moment,
"They're playing hide-and-seek in the woods!" Gavin started, "and the boy's the seeker." JJ made the woman puppet run to a back corner of the box while the man turned and walked in random directions, "And then when he finds her, he scares her-"
"So she punches him in the face!" JJ made an exaggerated surprised face which made them giggle. He shrugs and moves the man over to where the woman is and makes it look as if she jumped and the swings the handle, her hand made a tiny tap when she "punched" him and the kids giggled harder,
"But she punches too hard and falls over!" Lily added. JJ let the strings go slack. Gavin leans over and grabs a wooden figurine of a dog and puts it in the stage,
"And then they see a tiger! And they both start screaming!"
"But then they realize it's their pet tiger!"
"But the tiger gets scared of them screaming and jumps on them!"
The story and the relentless giggling continues until it starts getting dark outside. The kids start glancing over their shoulders and JJ decides that the attic is a lot scarier at night, so he puts down the puppets and signs "finish". despite their groans, they seemed glad to go back downstairs before it got to scary. Then there was a knock at the door.
The kids screamed and nearly tackled their Uncle who definitely stayed very calm and definitely didn't jump out of his skin. The three of them started laughing as JJ went to let Chase in. The kids latched onto there father who hugged them tightly,
"Did you guys have fun?"
"Yeah!" They both said at the same time. They immediately bombarded their dad telling him what they did while they were there and asking if they could come over all the time. As night came, they had to take their leave. JJ and Chase carried the half asleep kids to the car, and said their goodbyes,
"I really appreciate it Jamie, thank you so much."
"Of course. It was no trouble at all." Without warning Chase wrapped him in a hug,
"I mean it. Thank you." JJ squeezed him back. After a moment Chase let go,
"Better get these two in bed." And with that, he left. JJ waved goodbye and sighed to himself. Babysitting isn't that hard.