I LOVE Sparkles

I got to spend some fabulous quality time with my little nephew B the other week. The boy’s brother called him for some help putting up the Christmas lights on their house and asked if I could watch B and his little sister. I got totally excited and said YES!

And then said WTF! I just agreed to watch a barely two year old and a six month old. Me. By myself. No adult intervention to prevent fatal accidents. This was alarming.

Cue frantic Googling to find crafts and activities appropriate for a two year old. I needed to keep that kid occupied or it would all go to hell real fast. A quick trip to the Dollar store and $16 bucks worth of craft supplies later and I felt like I was going into battle, but at least armed with a plan.

I knew the night was going to be fun when little B saw my sparkly gold nails and said “Ohhh Sparklesh, I love sparklesh”. It was on.

This was his "cheese" face. Except he kept drawing it out waiting for you to take the picture and was making a face like he was in pain. He's so damn cute.

When the boy came down about half an hour later, he gasped and uttered “Sean*, WHAT DID YOU DO???”.  He might have been overreacting a tad, or he might have been reacting to the fact that he knows his brother and sister in law are (in the kindest way possible) complete OCD neat freaks.

I had laid down newspapers. I didn’t see what the problem was.

“There’s glitter everywhere!”

Awww, shucks no, it’ll come out.  What’s that? B’s hands are dyed several bright colours from the Popsicle sticks? No worries, we’ll clean him up. What, he has sparkly glue on his forehead and clothes? It’ll wash right out. Seriously the glitter isn’t that bad.

Cue the boy’s brother having a mini meltdown when he came to see what we were up to. And frantically breaking out the vacuum cleaner to try to limit the glitter spread.

B had a blast. He kept calling me AunShun and didn’t want to stop playing with the “sparklesh”. We made a sparkle snow globe with an animal inside (one that you couldn’t see since B was a leeetle enthusiastic when pouring in the sparkles). It was a little leaky and helped the sparkle proliferation, but B was excited to show Mummy what he made for her. His little sister just watched us and gurgled happily.

We figured it was time to go home since B was now refusing to go to bed. He was running around in circles and dancing. And it was entirely sparkle fueled happiness, no candy involved.

As we walked out the door, B’s dad whispered to me, in a scared tremulous voice “Where did you put the snow globe?”

 I really should have said “In your bed”.  

Poor man, I think I shattered his nerves. Just too many sparkles.  

I don’t think I’ll be babysitting again any time soon.

But I’ve already started stocking a messy crafts box for B’s visit at our place.

* Sean is my nickname, all those near and dear call me that.