#5 Dawn and the Impossible Three

I drew Dawn.  This is her third book snarked and poor Claudia, one of the founding five has only been snarked once!!  Soon the odds will be ever in her favor…

So, I blame this book for my incessant need to have a clean house before any sitter comes over.  Most of the time, Dawn is whining about how messy Mrs. Barrett’s house is, so I have this phobia that if any of my sitters see the house in disarray, they are going to consider myself and my children “impossible.”  The other reason is that at the beginning of the book, Dawn (partially) blames the divorce on her mother’s disorganized habits.  Her father “just couldn’t live with it.”  Sorry, IMO disorganization is not a good reason for a divorce.  Just sayin’.

Looking at the cover, it looks like Dawn is with some ordinary kids in a not so messy house.  Impossible, you say…well, let’s just dive in and see, shall we?

After a relatively brief introduction, we find that Dawn is sitting for just a few of the Pike kids.  After her short and succinct chapter two descriptions, she meets Buddy and Suzi Barrett when Suzi falls on the front steps.  Dawn fixes the owie; soon after Mrs. Pike arrives and Dawn leaves for Mary Anne’s house.  Exciting news there – Dawn’s mom and MA’s Dad are on a dinner date!  They head over to Claudia’s house - they still are polite at this point and ring the bell – and talk briefly with Janine.  Why they make such a big deal about Janine, I don’t know.  Maybe because she’s Ted Mosby.  They start the meeting, MA gets a job with the Prezzioso “brat” Jenny and Dawn gets a job with a new client – the Barretts.  She’s excited because she’s a kid of divorce and the Barretts are just going through a divorce and it’s just meant to be.

When she gets home her mom is running out for her date, so it’s just Dawn and Jeff for dinner.  Just as Dawn is getting ready to eat, MA calls and tells her that she gets to redecorate her room and Dawn offers some of the extra furnishings they brought with them from Cali.  The next day she hauls them over to MA’s house and they start checking them out.  Kristy looks over and sees them together and MA invites her over.  Kristy gives Dawn the cold shoulder and tries to muscle her out, which worries Dawn.

Kristy continues to give Dawn the cold shoulder and Dawn realizes Kristy is jealous and feels left out now that MA has another friend.  Really?  Did it just now occur to you? 

The next day Dawn sits for the Barretts (Buddy, Suzi and Marnie) for the first time and she is greeted by actual children, not the Stoneybrook Stepford Kids.  They are messy and their clothes are askew (for lack of a better word).  What would you expect of children in the afternoon?  Unless it’s Jenny P, I’m guessing most normal kids aren’t perfectly spotless after being awake most of the day and their hair isn’t going to be perfect either.  Mrs. Barrett rushes into the room and rushes out – failing to leave Dawn any instructions.  Now, I get the need for emergency numbers (posted by the phone) where I’ll be and a schedule.  If I don’t have everything perfectly laid out, I would hope my babysitter would be able to function…I have my doubts about Dawn’s abilities.  She has the kids help her clean the house and then she does their hair.  By the end of the job, they start talking about divorce and how daddies never come back and Suzi starts crying and calls Dawn a liar.  Now I get that Dawn just went through divorce too, but I don’t want my sitter getting into a deep discussion with my child about something that’s personal.  Especially not my four-year-old.  I think I’d be a bit perturbed if I found out about this.

The next chapter is a sitting chapter and Kristy is sitting for Karen and Andrew.  The point I found interesting is that Kristy insists on talking to the parents of Karen’s friend Hannie before she comes over.  Apparently sitters are supposed to include parents in their plans.  I guess that gets lost as the series moves on.

Dawn decides she has to do something about Kristy, so she invites her over to spend the afternoon at her house.  They end up having a good time and the tension between the two of them subsides a bit.

Dawn’s next sitting job with the Barretts is all day and when Dawn gets there at 8:15, the girls are still in their jammies and she starts twigging out a little.  On the weekends, we don’t get the kids out of their jammies until 9, unless they want to get dressed.  Relax, Dawn!  After Mrs. Barrett leaves, Dawn prepares a mental schedule, since she’s meeting up with Claudia and Stacy for a picnic lunch.  Of course the schedule doesn’t go as planned, but they manage to make it to the picnic with brownies that they made.  As Dawn goes to give Marnie one, Mallory grabs it out of her hand, informing Dawn that Marnie is allergic to chocolate.  Yes, this is a big thing that she should have been informed of.  At the end of the job, Dawn decides she’s going to complain to Mrs. Barrett about her 4 grievances:

1. She never gives instructions (ok, I’ll give her that one)
2. She hardly pays attention to her children (a. not her business and b. how does she know?  She’s not there all the time)
3. She is disorganized (not affecting you that much, so I say no)
4. She’s only paying Dawn for sitting, not for housecleaning (which she never asked Dawn to do – it was Dawn’s choice to do it).

The next chapter is a Claudia sitting chapter and I had to check the chapter to find out whose entry it was, because the writing is fairly neat and, while she makes a few grammatical and spelling errors, she does not seem illiterate.  And we don’t actually read about her job with Jeff; the chapter is about Dawn’s woes with the Barretts.  She’s spending more and more time there, to the point that Mrs. Barrett says she’s the “glue holding us all together.”  This is where I look at DAWN’s mom and wonder why she doesn’t put her foot down and tell Dawn to cut back, especially after the whole Schafer family catches the stomach flu when Suzi is sick and Mrs. Barrett leaves the wrong phone number.  Buddy is also struggling with needing Mom time, especially with his special homework.

We have another sitting chapter that sets up the next book.  Stacy is sitting David Michael and he’s worried about moving across town to Watson’s house.

Dawn and her mom decide tohave a picnic for Memorial Day and somehow Dawn convinces her mom to get hot dogs and hamburgers.  MA’s dad and Dawn’s mom make goo-goo eyes at each other, to the slight annoyance of Dawn’s grandparents, but they come around as the day passes.

MA is the next to sit for the Barretts and she calls them terrors.  I call them kids who have been cooped up in a house during 3 days of rain.  There is a strange call from Mr. Barrett, setting up the next chapter.

Dawn’s sitting for the Barretts again and it’s finally stopped stopped raining.  She sends Buddy outside while she gets the girls ready and when she gets outside, Buddy is gone.  That is every parent/sitter’s worst nightmare. Dawn starts calling around hoping he went to someone’s house, but to no avail.  The neighbors start a search, but when Jordan Pike returns from his piano lesson and reveals that Buddy got into a car, Mrs. Pike calls the police.  The police arrive, question Jordan and start a neighborhood canvass.  Dawn gets a call from Buddy saying he’s with his dad and on his way home. Mrs. Barrett arrives home in the midst of this and finds out what happened.  Shortly afterward, Buddy and his dad arrive.  The story is that Mr. Barrett was so frustrated with Mrs. Barrett’s inability to keep the custody schedule straight and he decided to teach her a lesson. 

Dawn talks to Mrs. Barrett the next day and tells her she can’t do all that she has been doing and Mrs. Barrett agrees.  It’s also a good idea for Dawn to quit encouraging the kids and Mrs. Barrett to take advantage of her.

Everything turns out well and a few days later, Jeff comes to a BSC meeting and takes a picture of the gang for MA’s new room.  Here’s to the best friends you’ll ever have!