The care and feeding of nieces

I've dived back into the land of 'are we there yet' and 'I'm thirsty', reading long bed-time stories and making short phone calls. I'm taking care of my almost-four-year old niece for a couple of days. It's interesting getting back into the routine. I have to remind myself I didn't entertain my children every waking hour and that it's okay if the kids don't finish all the food on their plate but not okay if they walk around with a cup of hot chocolate. At this stage of my life I'm still surprised I did all the sewing/canning/cleaning/preserving I did with three kids at home under the age of four. My life has found a different rhythm since then and it's hard to dance with an almost four year old to the beat of a different drummer. Of course the other benefit of babysitting is that I don't have to discipline or shape and mold behavior. Consequently, darling little niece is now parked in front of the television watching The Lion King, just so her aunty can post to her blog about the adventures of babysitting. There's a lesson here. I just don't know if I have time to puzzle it out. The movie is going to end pretty soon and I'm running out of time.