No sooner had I written this and ...

So Erika babysat for a new family that lives in our neighborhood tonight, the same night that I had my column published about her babysitting experiences ... and I mentioned she hadn't had any big problems babysitting ... until, of course, tonight, of all nights, she had a mini-disaster.

Erika was caring for two little boys, ages 2 and 4, and the oldest has severe food allergies. While nothing bad happened in that way and the boys were great, Erika was checking out one of the epi-pens a little too closely, opened the top, thinking it was the "pretend" epi-pen that the dad used for a demonstration because she couldn't see the thin needle and the thing discharged on the table. She cleaned it up, she wasn't poked with the epi-pen but she spent the night tormented, feeling guilty and worrying that they were going to be mad at her. She called me a couple of times, saying that she just felt so guilty. I felt so bad for her. She said they were really nice about the whole disaster, she told them immediately, but she still felt so bad.

I guess it's a good lesson for her -- to leave the dang epi-pens alone -- but it's hard when you're the mom and it's your kid that makes a bad choice. I guess I just need to be prepared. I'm sure she's got bigger mistakes to make along the way.

Here's the column I wrote:

The baby sitter sometimes needs baby-sitting
Mom sometimes feels like a receptionist for the baby sitter in demand.
By JODIE TWEED
Staff Writer
There's that oh-so-brief moment in a young girl's life after the Barbies and Bratz dolls are packed away into storage but the trappings of teen life - dating boys, summer jobs, cell phones - have yet to fully consume their lives.

It's the age of the perfect baby sitter, or the time when most girls begin their teenage baby-sitting careers with unbridled enthusiasm.

My 13-year-old daughter, Erika, started baby-sitting for other families about six months ago, which has made my life as a parent all the more busy.

I've become her receptionist of sorts, making sure she is aware of her various baby-sitting duties and briefing her on the names and ages of the children she will be caring for. While she could easily do much of that herself - and it annoys her when I'm constantly reminding her of the obvious - it's hard to stop being a parent. Plus, her baby-sitting has to be worked out with our family schedule, which can be hectic.But I'm thrilled that's she's found something she truly enjoys and she's helping out other families as well. She is mostly baby-sitting for families from our church and those who live in our neighborhood.

I've noticed that baby-sitting for other people's children has made her more responsible at home. She's also proud of herself for earning some extra spending money, which came in handy for her when we went to a concert at the Xcel Energy Center this week. She could spend her own hard-earned cash, instead of mine, on an overpriced concert T-shirt.

Baby-sitting is more than just about earning money. A teen has to enjoy it. As my daughter has told me before, baby-sitting allows her to be a kid again by playing with the children and she likes that part the best.Baby-sitting starting at 11 allowed me to earn enough money to pay for my Madonna and Duran Duran cassette tapes and countless Tiger Beat magazines, but I haven't heard of a lot of other teens who baby-sit as often as my friends and I once did. So I asked a few moms what they look for in a baby-sitter or even if they use them. Several moms said they find their sitters through referrals from friends or by finding teen sitters through their church.

Courtney Neifert, a stay-at-home mom, moved to Baxter four years ago with her husband. They don't have any local family members to lean on to occasionally baby-sit so they've had to rely on hiring baby-sitters for their daughter, Lindsey, 1, and son, Brandon, 3."Sometimes it's tough," Neifert said on finding a sitter. She said she and her husband try to go out two to three times a month and are in need of a sitter those nights. They have two older teen girls they now use, but she recommends having at least three different names of sitters in case they're too busy with their own activities.

"They're about to get their driver's licenses, which is great, but their social lives are expanding," Neifert said of her teen sitters.

Joleen Merrill, Breezy Point, is a coordinator of the Mothers of Preschoolers group that meets at the Crosslake Log Church. She said finding a sitter is often a topic among the other moms in MOPS, who often make recommendations to one another. Merrill has two children, ages 1 and 3. She said they haven't yet hired a baby-sitter but she and her husband "talk about it a lot." She said they've done a baby-sitting swap with their friends where they watch each other's children when they need it.

"It works out nice because you don't have that added expense of baby-sitting and going out for dinner too," said Merrill of trading baby-sitting services with friends.Merrill said she, too, started baby-sitting at age 11 or 12 adding, "And I don't know for the life of me how those people learned to trust me."

She said when she and her husband do decide to hire a sitter, it'll likely be a girl who attends their church where she would know the family.While I trust my daughter, no matter who she's baby-sitting for I'm at home wondering how things are going. I'm always worrying about whether she's being responsible, respectful and picking up after herself and the children. I'm hoping the children aren't dangling precariously from a balcony or that whatever she's making for dinner isn't burning on the stove. But so far, she hasn't had any baby-sitting disasters (that I'm aware of) and I try to call at least once while she's baby-sitting to check and see how she's faring.

Like a teenage Mary Poppins, she has a red canvas tote bag she designed in her baby-sitter's training class last spring that she carries with her whenever she goes baby-sitting. The bag contains all the essentials - stickers to use as a reward or bribe, coloring sheets, parent information forms and a copy of her baby-sitting training certificate.

It's been a transition for me to become a baby-sitter's mom, especially when you still consider your child to be your own baby. But it's so much fun to watch her come home after a long night's work and be happy with the job she accomplished all on her own.