Assistant Parent not Fun Aunt Candy

My 17 year old niece Heather came to visit me on Sunday night and she will be here through next weekend. Her mom and brothers will arrive on Wednesday evening for their yearly visit. I left her at my house on Monday while I was at work so she could sleep late and relax. I had a dentist appointment so I arrived home early about 3:30pm. When I opened my garage I noticed a strange bike inside and I wondered to myself, “Where did this come from?” I thought, did Heather find this bike somewhere and bring it home? As I got out of the car I was shocked speechless. Here comes Heather and some boy out of my house! I didn’t know him because I make it a point to keep to myself at home and I have no children that socialize with anyone. I asked “Who is this?” He said: “Hi, My name is Adam and I live down the street.” I just stood there and didn’t know what to say. I am not a parent of a teenager; I didn’t know how to handle this situation. They said that they were going to ride their bikes back to the pool for a while. So I went inside and got my book so I could sit in my hammock in the backyard and forget about the horrible dentist appointment. About fifteen minutes after I was outside I hear the TV, and I see Heather and the boy in the living room playing his XBOX that he brought over. I stayed outside for about and hour and then came in to cook dinner. The children were still in the living room playing their games so I decided to listen to some music and sing along….just to slightly embarrass Heather. When I was about done cooking I had noticed that the living room had become very quiet and I could no longer see the children on the floor, they were out of my sight range. I decided to turn up the music and sing a bit louder, just to remind them that I was still there. I told them it was time for the boy to go home because dinner was almost ready and Lou and his family were on their way over. Even though I said that….the still were talking and not moving very fast. He was still there when Lou arrived and everyone had to be greeted. Once we finally scooted him out of the house…Lou immediately told Heather that it was not appropriate to have boys over with no adult at home. Now…why couldn’t I do that? I am not used to doing any type of parenting. I just like to do fun things with the children. After dinner and after Lou and his family left Adam came back. They were playing Pokémon on some handheld video game system for several hours. I decided that I needed to do quiet activities so I could hear them. So I spent several hours on-line and then reading. About 9pm I had decided that Heather had enough visit time and I told them it was time for him to go home. I went to my room to watch TV for 30 minutes and Heather still didn’t come inside…so I had to do a second visit outside to request his departure. He even left his Xbox for her to play so she wouldn’t get bored.

I decided to arrange activities for Heather during the day on Tuesday to fill her time…but today she is home alone. Who knows what will happen.