Babysitter at age 5

So we went skiing today. AJ is assigned to a great instructor who has a wonderful balance between being flexible with the kids but also firm. After the lesson she tells me that he is skipping straight to parallel turns. "Which is great," she intones, "but you have GOT to REQUIRE that he slow down and stay in control. Otherwise he IS GOING to hurt himself or someone else." All the way up the mountain I lecture and threaten him within an inch of his life. "If you ski too fast and lose control, ski patrol will pull your ticket. If they don't...I WILL!!" What followed was several runs of the most beautiful, slow, in-control S turns you have ever seen.

While we ride up the lift, AJ has one of those moments where he starts talking about before. "My mom says don't go outside," he says. I ask why his mom wanted him to stay inside. Turns out that his mom would go to work. He doesn't know where she went or what she did while she was gone. During her absence, his job was to look after his little sister. I am estimating that at best, AJ was 5 and Enot was 3 when this was going on. "Don't go outside" was probably the best shot she had at making sure her kids would be ok when she returned.