How to be productive while baby-sitting?
(Alternative titles:
How to efficiently use your baby-sitting time? Things to do during your baby-sitting hours. Efficient use of your baby-sitting time.)

This is how the morning started. I did a Google search on efficient use of baby-sitting hours. I baby-sit on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. I am a firm believer in multitasking, that with computers and other automation it is possible for you to do more than a couple of things concurrently. But when I am baby-sitting I fall short of my parallel processing goals. I put a child gate at the door to my garage office and start working on the computer, but the children strongly disapprove. They start with loud protests and then go on to throw their toys in the office; if I still don't pay attention they tell me they need to go bathroom, right away--just about anything to disrupt my work. I have also tried taking a nap during my baby-sitting hours especially when the children are busy playing with each other. I thought I would refresh myself and when children would take their afternoon nap I would be full of energy to do my work. But that scheme did not work either. The children might have been playing with each other but as soon as they saw me reclining on sofa and closing my eyes, they smelled foul play. They rushed to me and told me that they too needed to take a nap, when actually it was not their nap time. One other thing I tried was to write my diary during my baby-sitting time. These days I mostly write on computer, but since working on computer while looking after the babies was not practical I thought I would discreetly use my diary to write my thoughts, and would later type the stuff on the computer. But discreetly writing diary while baby-sitting did not work either. The children realized I was up to something. They came close and discovered my diary and the pen; then they wanted to snatch the pen off my hand and tear off pages from the diary. I wonder if I should build myself a cage. I sit in the cage do my stuff and occasionally accord a glance to the children. I am afraid they would use their 'need to go the bathroom, right away' trick to get me out of the cage. Oh, I have also tried watching documentary films while looking after the babies thinking I would efficiently use my baby-sitting hours to gain knowledge and nurture my soul. But babies don't like documentaries, and when I tell them to play with each other they normally go but very soon there is a big fight; I have to get off the sofa and intervene. And the most important part of the documentary is aired right at that very instant.

But my baby-sitting ordeal has not gone completely unfruitful. I have finally discovered a prescription that works, although I am not too big a fan of it. It is retail therapy. Well, actually I don't buy anything I just take children to a large store and look at things with them.
So, this is where I was this morning: looking for new ideas to put baby-sitting time to good use. My search took me from one web site to another, and then I saw this:

http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/12/am-i-crazy/#respond

"Where do I begin? I am 47 years old, a male with a lot of issues that I don’t seem to ever get any warning before they explode on me that serve to wreck my life and the lives of those around me. I had a lot of emotional issues as a youth........."

The narrative moved me. I wanted to write a response, but the web site didn't let me post a comment. Here is what I wanted to say:

You have come to the right place. Write more, pour your heart out. It would heal you and would ultimately set you free from your demons. Being suicidal is stupid. Life has to end one day; why end it sooner? Learn to look at your life from a distance, as if all that has been happening with you is actually someone else's experience; as if you are reading your past in a book. Keep going through life one day at a time. Make little doable goals for every day and get those things done. And remember that you are not the only owner of your life, the rest of the world, all 6 billion of us, are connected to you in one way or another.