Babysitter + Sick Child = One Loooong Weekend

I was a single parent for a very long weekend . . . except I'm not a parent. I am, in fact, that proverbial old-maid aunt with cats, not kids, who loves to spend time with my nieces and nephews, and gets to leave once the crying starts; but not this particular weekend. Note: names have been changed for this story to protect the innocent, namely my family and friends.

For their 15th anniversary, my sister Lisa and brother-in-law Dave flew to Chicago to hang out, do some shopping and watch the Twins play the Cubs. My job was to babysit my niece and nephew - 6-year-old Genna and 10-year-old Jason - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was supposed to be cook, chauffeur and guardian - nothing more. Such a simple plan . . . that turned into the perfect storm of coughs, croup and cell phone calls.

It all started when Jason woke up Friday morning with a slight fever. My sister and brother-in-law's plane was leaving at 9 a.m., so my sister Lisa gave him some Children's TYLENOL_â and dropped him (and Genna) off at Discovery Club, a school program that offers child care before and after school. She told the teacher that he had woken up with a fever, but that she'd given him the Tylenol. Then she called to tell me about his fever, and said she would leave info and some cash for co-pays just in case I needed to bring him to the doctor.

A victim of the current recession, I had an appointment with a temp agency at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, and didn't have to be to my sister's house until 4 p.m. because the kids' bus arrived around 4:15. I got back from my appointment, ate lunch and started to pack my suitcase for the weekend. Around 12:45 the phone rang. It was the nurse from Jason's school. He had a fever and I needed to pick him up immediately. I explained to the nurse that I'm in Plymouth (a northwestern suburb of Minneapolis) and he is in St. Paul, so "immediately" will be at least 30 to 45 minutes, depending on traffic. She doesn't care. She tells me he is crying hysterically, and I need to get there now! I have to admit: she intimidated the hell out of me. Would she have Children's Services come and take the kids if I finished packing before I went to pick them up?

I stop packing as ordered and go online to get directions to Jason's school from my house. I was there once, but that was nearly a year ago, so I print out a map, jump in the car and head toward St. Paul. Lisa calls me on my cell and says the school nurse had called her, too, and I should finish packing before I leave to pick them up. Too late; I'm already on the road. Because she didn't want Genna riding the bus home by herself, Lisa said she made arrangements for me to pick up both kids.

When I get to the school, Jason and Genna are sitting in the office holding their backpacks on their laps and looking very calm and collected.

I should have finished packing!!!

If Jason was crying hysterically, which I now doubt, odds are it's because he was supposed to go to a sleepover party that night, and now he won't be able to go; not because he doesn't feel well.

On the drive to their school, I'd thought about what I should do: bring Jason home so he could lie down and get some rest or bring him back with me to my condo so I could finish packing; Genna would be coming to my house either way. I decide my best option is to bring Jason home. I give him some Children's TYLENOL and tell him to drink plenty of fluids and rest, and that we will be back in around two hours. Genna and I hit early Friday rush hour, and it takes us a good 50 minutes to get to my place, so my estimate of when we were getting back was going to be way off.

As I pull into the underground parking garage of my condo, Jason calls me on my cell phone. "Where are you?" he asks. I explain that I am just pulling into the garage, and once I finish packing, I still need to hit the grocery store and pick up a few things I know Lisa won't have - like Diet Dr. Pepper_â and 2% string cheese. I assure him that Genna and I will be back at his house in an hour to an hour and a half. It takes a little longer than that because Genna has to touch everything in the grocery store. I keep telling her we are in a hurry and need to get home to Jason, but it's like she's never been in a grocery store before.

"Wow, look at that," she'd say, and run over to touch a broom, a box of cereal, a jar of pickles, etc. My usual boring solo trips to the grocery store were looking very much like a vacation just about now.

By the time Genna and I get back to their house in St. Paul, Jason is complaining that his glands and throat hurt. I immediately think mumps - why else would his glands hurt? I call Lisa's cell to tell her what is going on. She says if he doesn't feel better in the morning, I should take him to the family's regular clinic or, if he is really sick, to emergency at Children's Hospital. But for now, I should call the triage nurse and ask her what she thinks. Okay. Oh, and Jason has been inoculated for mumps, so it shouldn't be that.

I call the triage nurse hotline. The nurse asks me questions, which I then ask Jason. Does your throat hurt? Can you swallow? Have you urinated? He looks at me very perplexed.

"Have you peed?" I ask, thinking he doesn't know what urinated means.

Again the look. I explain that if he hasn't peed for quite a while, it could be a sign there's something wrong. He quickly tells me he's peed. The nurse says it doesn't sound urgent, but if anything changes, I should call back or go to the emergency room. The problem with Jason is that he tends to overplay it when he's sick, so it's hard to know if he's really sick. I give him Children's TYLENOL every four hours and try to get him to drink more water.

At 6 the next morning Jason wakes me up by coming into my bedroom crying. He is coughing and sounds like a barking seal. Plus, he's lost his voice. I take him to the kitchen, heat up some chicken broth (which last night's triage nurse told me would make his throat feel better) and call the triage nurse hotline again. This nurse is not quite as helpful as the first one. She can't figure out what hours their family clinic is open on Saturday, but she thinks he has croup and needs to be seen by a doctor within the next four hours (what happens after that, she never says and I don't want to know).

I get Genna up and feed her breakfast. She dresses herself and comes out of her room wearing a patterned top, flowered skirt and striped tights. Far be it for me to tell her what to wear, but you need sunglasses just to look at her. I don't have time to take a shower, wash my hair or put on makeup because I want to be at the clinic when they open at 8 a.m. I call Lisa and fill her in on what's happening. I can tell by her voice that I woke her up. Good.

We get to the clinic at 8 a.m. and are told they actually opened at 7:30, they don't usually take walk-ins and they don't have urgent care. I tell Jason we have to go to Children's Hospital emergency room, and he starts to cry that he doesn't want to go to the hospital. To be honest, I don't really want to go to the hospital either, anticipating several hours in the waiting room as he obviously isn't dying. The clinic nurse/receptionist said she might be able to fit us in for 9:30; I gratefully take the appointment. To kill time, we drive to a nearby mall and window shop and walk around with the seniors out for their morning exercise. The kids thought it was cool to walk around the mall before the stores are open and they don't have to wait to sit in the rides or climb around on the kiddie statues.

We get back to the clinic around 9:20; we see the doctor at 10:15. It's confirmed: Jason has croup. The doctor gives us a prescription for Prednisone and says Jason should start feeling better about six hours after he's taken the first dose. The doctor also prescribes popsicles and malts, which gets a positive reaction from both kids, and phones the Prednisone prescription in to the Target in Woodbury. I call Lisa to tell her it's croup (she had been thinking strep) and asked for directions to the Target in Woodbury. It takes at least 15 minutes to drive there from the clinic, and I expect the prescription will be ready. It isn't. We have to walk around Target for another 15 minutes carrying a huge capsule-shaped thing that acts as a pager - it vibrates and buzzes when the prescription is ready. The kids think it's great, and take turns holding it. Whoever is holding it when it goes off wins. That would be Jason.

I pick up lunch by way of the Culver's drive-thru (including malts for the kids) and we eat at home. No one ever mentioned if Jason was contagious, and to be truthful, I forgot to ask, but why chance it? Genna is supposed to attend a birthday party in Eden Prairie (a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis) that starts at 2 p.m., and because we are in the southeastern part of the Twin Cities, I estimate it will take us at least 45 minutes to get there, maybe more with all the road construction going on. I still have no time to take a shower, wash my hair or put on make-up if we're going to get there on time.

Originally, I had planned that Jason and I would leave her at the party and go to Eden Prairie Mall to walk around for a while, but now he has to stay home alone, again. I'm not thrilled about it, but I certainly can't bring him to the birthday party. He's supposed to be resting, and I still don't know if he's contagious. The birthday girl is the daughter of a good friend of my sister and brother-in-law's, and I know the mom and her husband pretty well. The girls were born two weeks apart, and they have fairly regular play dates.

Traffic on I494 to Eden Prairie is insane for a Saturday, due mainly to all the road construction and detours going on because I35, a main artery in the Twin Cities' freeway system, is in the process of being ripped apart and put back together. The party is at an arts studio for kids, and the kids will be making - you guessed it - art. I'm still thinking I need to leave because none of the other parents are staying, just dropping off, but I look at Genna and tears the size of Hershey Kisses_â are rolling down her cheeks. She doesn't cry unless something's really wrong, so it shakes me to my core.

"What's wrong, honey?" I ask, giving her a big hug, but she doesn't answer. She just stands there looking like one of those paintings of the sad-eyed waifs from 60s.

The only person Genna knows at the party is the birthday girl, and none of the other girls will talk to her. The birthday girl's mom asks one of the other girls if she will be Genna's special friend for the party, but the girl just looks quizzically at the mom and me, and walks away. I thought my heart would break. The tears continued to roll down Genna's cheeks, and I knew I couldn't leave her, even though the birthday girl's dad assured me she'd be fine once the art project got going. I told him I couldn't leave, especially since her mom and dad were gone for the weekend; she'd feel like we'd all deserted her.

I call Jason just to check in and see how he's doing - and remind him that he needs to rest and drink "plenty of liquids." He seems fine, more bored than anything else. Later on I find out he's been calling his mom and dad's cell phones telling them what's going on at the Twins/Cubs game (he's watching it on TV) since it was raining and they'd opted to skip Saturday's game and go to Sunday's instead. Meanwhile, I sit in that studio, which is the temperature of a meat locker, for an hour and a half while the girls make and decorate clay cupcakes.

As I try to find a comfortable sitting position on a chair built for 6-year old rear ends - not one the size of mine - and waving at Genna every time she turns around to make sure I'm still there, Jason calls me on my cell phone to say he's plugged up the toilet. I thought the birthday girl's dad was going to bust a gut laughing; me, not so much. I tell Jason he's got two other bathrooms in the house, use one of them until I get home and try to unplug it with the plunger. About this time, I'm seriously thinking of driving home to Plymouth and calling my brother-in-law's sister, a real mom with years of experience in situations like this, and begging her to drive the 150 miles from northern Minnesota to the Cities and take over, but I don't. I can do this, or at least I keep telling myself I can.

The party ends at 3:30, and just as we're walking out the door, Jason calls my cell phone again. "Where are you?" he asks. I tell him we are just leaving the party and are on our way home. "Give us about 45 minutes to an hour," I tell him. I am exhausted. Obviously, I am not cut out to be a single parent; I not even sure I am cut out to be an aunt anymore.

I can't unplug the toilet (I decide to let my brother-in-law handle that one), so I tape up a big sign on the bathroom door that says "Do Not Use This Toilet" because the kids keep forgetting and continue to walk into that bathroom. I finally had to make my own version of a police tape and run it across the doorway, forcing them to duck to get in there. The kids both want French toast strips and chocolate milk for supper. I don't have the energy to insist on a meal that includes food groups other than bread, milk and sugar. We're all in bed by 9:30 p.m.

The next morning Jason is obviously feeling better; he's bugging me and annoying his sister. The kids want to go to the mall again before the stores open. Are they insane? They whine and whine and whine until they wear me down and I say okay. After we get there, and the stores do open, I realize Jason just wants to eat lunch at Burger King because they're giving away Pokéman_â cards with every meal. I may be easy, but I'm not stupid! He gets his hamburger and as he unwraps it, the top bun sticks to the paper and the patty falls on the floor. Is this a test? I get back in line and buy him another hamburger.

When we get home, the kids want me to get their swimming pool out of the garage so they can cool off outside (it's at least 85°). What they don't tell me is that the pool is up in the garage rafters beneath a huge bag of salt for the water softener. This time I am not swayed by their continuous whining, and stand my ground. There's no way I'm getting on a ladder and try to move that humongous bag of salt to get their swimming pool down. They are not happy with me. I also remind Jason that he's recovering from croup and shouldn't be running around in this kind of heat. He's supposed to be resting. I am not popular this afternoon.

Lisa and Dave get back around 10:15 Sunday night. My car is packed and as much as I love my niece and nephew, I'm ready and more than raring to go home. Dave says he knew my car would be packed for a fast get-away; he was surprised it wasn't running, too.

I learned a few things over that long weekend:

1) I'm better at handling non-work related crises than I thought I would be.

2) And in that vein, if you're a parent, you should be able to include crisis management as a skill on your resume.

3) I'm glad I'm an aunt.