By Courtney Demarest, Grade 7

Parents want a babysitter that is nurturing, very responsible, loves to play games but can be stern to. Wait……. Rachel Reichard fits that description perfectly.

Rachel loves to babysit. This past weekend she babysat for a couple so they could take some time out from parenting and working and just enjoy each other’s company.

Rachel told me that once when she was babysitting a young toddler,  he fell down the stairs. I know I was thinking the same thing at first– did he really fall down a flight of stairs? Well he didn’t; he only fell down one little step. When she told me that, I was so relieved that it was one little step he fell down not a bunch of them. She also told me that when she was babysitting, a baby puked on her. Her description of it was warm and lumpy; she said the reason it was so lumpy was because she gave him some chicken for dinner. Rachel said that it was something that she would never forget. The thing that made that moment even more memorable was that she was wearing a white shirt.

When Rachel started babysitting, she wasn’t old enough to be home alone with the baby; she would go to their house and watch the baby while the mother or father had to take a shower or was busy doing something around the house. Rachel’s mother called her a Mommy’s Helper.  It gave her the experience to now be on her own supervising babies, toddlers, and little kids.

Rachel  sometimes gets paid but it depends on the time and situation.  It doesn’t seem to be about the money or time for Rachel, but the care she likes to give to children.