Advice for teenage Nanny?

Hi! Recently I've taken a position where I'm basically a mom every saturday for a month and a half or so. I'll cook, clean, AND watch two young boys. They're 2 and 5. I'm used to babysitting but doing everything at once...is kind of new. The person who hired me wants me to cook meals for the whole family...but that are kid friendly. Any ideas? Also, i'll be expected to do quite a bit of cleaning. Such as laundry. Any ideas how to balance all of this out as well?


I basically just want to hear any ideas or advice that anyone can give me for basically taking care of a household for ten hours every weekend.Advice for teenage Nanny?
Good for you! I'm sure you have lots of fun. :]





Cleaning- I would clean while the two year old takes a nap. The easy cleaning things you could have the 5 year old help out with like dusting, sweeping, giving the clothes to you to put in the washer, ect. Give him a little treat at the end like a thing of bubble gum (if he can have it), candy, bubbles, ect. It will make the 5 year old feel important and you can get things done faster!





Cooking- Keep things easy, fast and healthy. For lunch stick to the plain old PB%26amp;J. You can cut them up into little shapes to make it more fun, if you'd like. For snacks you can have carrots [or any other veggies], fresh fruit, pears with cottage cheese, ect. Try not to give them too much sugar, though.





Ants on a log-


Celery


Peanut Butter


Rasins


Then smear peanut butter on the celery and then stick the rasins on!





For dinner here is a great website for healthy, quick meals- http://www.healthy-quick-meals.com/index鈥?/a>





Some games and other stuff-


For crafts, try pre-arranged crafts, that don't involve glue or scissors. I like stickers. They can make pictures out of them or stick things together with them without glue.


More easy crafts:


-sticky foam shapes


-play-doh


-blocks (okay, these aren't crafts, but it gets them using their hands and being creative)


-bead threading


-sock puppets (all you need is socks and sticky eyes and shapes)





If you want to watch a movie have them pick their 5 favorite movies and you write them down on paper, put it in a jar and randomly pick one. You could have movie hour everyday if you'd like.





Go on a nature hunt, with jars for bugs and such.





Creative Storytelling: When the kid wants just one more book and they pick out (of course) the longest book, then using the pictures, make up a short and sweet story. Watch out: Make sure that the kid can't read and that they haven't read the book a gazzilion times and know it by heart.





Remember the Five Rules of Baby Sitting-





Always pay attention to the kids!


No friends or boyfriends over unless you have the parent's permission.


Be safe!


Always always always follow the parent's instructions.


Never leave the kids unattended.Advice for teenage Nanny?
I am a nanny during the week, but I also cook and clean for the families, so I think my experience could be helpful to you here.





-Make a schedule for the day and stick to it. Have meal/snack times, inside play and outside play, naptimes, and TV times on it. If the kids ask to do something, this way you can say, ';in twenty minutes'; instead of later. The five year old may even be able to tell time, so you can tell him ';at two o'clock'; and this will help them wait.





-The reason to stick to a schedule is that this will give you time to do the housework and cooking that you need to do. If they are settled with a show, playing nicely in their play area, or down for a nap this gives you time to do laundry, cook, or wash dishes without having to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.





Don't run yourself ragged on lunch and snack, kids are easy to please and like repeats (pb%26amp;j, anyone?) cut up even baby carrots into quarters length-wise for ';sticks'; or ';carrot fries';, give them a dollop of peanut butter with slices of apple or cream cheese with celery sticks, and you'll be their favorite babysitter ever. Cut juice with about 1/2 water. this is something moms do now that they will forget to tell you.





Dinner ideas:


Rainbow macaroni and cheese (aka macaroni and peas):


a box of macaroni and cheese (whole wheat is healthier)


any kind of pre-cut small veggies (I like the kind that microwave in bag)


cut-up chicken nuggets, meatballs, chicken breast, hot dogs (whatever is in the fridge)


Mix it all together in a big bowl, and voila. This has gotten real die-hard veggie phobes to eat it, because it's in macaroni and cheese. It's also really good to cut up some tomatoes into this.





You can make healthy ';french fries'; for side-dishes by cutting red potatoes into wedges, dipping them into vegetable oil, sprinkling them with parmesan cheese and putting them on a baking sheet in a 415 degree oven for 7-12 minutes.





Check out Rachael Ray's 30-minute meals site on Food Network or she also has some books out that are specifically for making kid-friendly food you could probably find at the library. Households usually aalso have some cookbooks. Don't feel like you have to follow the recipes exactly.





For desserts, graham crackers, jello, cool whip, and fruit go a long way, especially in the summer. If you cut up a few of those individual jello cups into a pretty bowl, top them with bite-sized fruit (blueberries, grapes, strawberries, whatever's on hand), then a dollop of cool-whip you've got a family-sized dessert. Another quick one is spreading two graham crackers with chocolate sauce, then a dollop of cool whip in the center to make cool whip ice cream sandwiches.





And if you're just working from what they have in the kitchen, just think: protein, starch, vegetable. Any combination of these three things constitutes dinner in my book.





Hopefully this was helpful!
Wow. That's a lot of responsibility for a teenager. If I were you, I'd sit down and REALLY think about if you are capable of handling this.





Personally, I feel like the woman asking you to do this should prepare the meals before hand. All you'd have to do is heat them up. If she's not capable of doing that, then simply ask her to leave you a list of the kids' favorite dinner meals that you could easily make.





As for the cleaning, try doing as much of it as you can while the kids are napping. Laundry can easily be done throughout the day. Chores such as cleaning the kids' rooms and sweeping the floor can be done while they are playing. In fact, have them help! Set up a timer and tell them they have to beat the clock. If they can pick up all their train tracks within the allotted time, they win! (no prize necessary. just clap and shout and make a big deal out of it.) For sweeping, just go to the dollar store and buy a hand held brush and pan set. They are just the right size for the 5 year old. Ask him to pick up as many crumbs as he can. You get down there with him. First one to pick up 20 crumbs (or whatever) wins!





Other than that, stay on top of the cleaning. If you do the dishes after every meal, you won't be overwhelmed by a large pile of them later in the day.