The Babysitter

Finding a good babysitter is a challenge. I have always worked outside of the home. This full time stay at home mom thing is a new gig for me. When my daughters were babies, my Tom and I held off putting them in daycare for as long as possible. We managed this with the help of family and flexible work schedules. I dropped down to part time after having Megan so it was pretty easy. We did the whole daycare thing for a few years until Hailey turned 5. She was enrolled in a Young Fives program so we only needed someone to watch her 3 mornings a week. We decided to have a woman come to our house and watch her there. We found a wonderful woman who we will call Jenny.

Jenny was great. Hailey loved Jenny. I’m confident that she loved Jenny more then me and I am secure in my relationship with my daughter to be okay with that reality. Of course it helps that we later moved and put 200 miles between us and Jenny, but I digress. Jenny was cool. Jenny believed Hailey when she said that Mommy always lets her grab a stick of butter and eat away. Feel free to go vomit right now if you need to. Jenny took Hailey shopping when Hailey “had nothing to wear.” Yes this has been an issue since….well since birth. Yes, Jenny was cool and Mommy was drool. The truth is that I loved Jenny too. She was amazingly patient with my head strong, fiery Hailey. I could tell that she genuinely loved Hailey which is a great thing to find in a babysitter. Those of you who have been in my situation know that all you want is someone who will care for your child almost as good as you do. Jenny was everything you could want in a babysitter. She was a day at the spa, a night out with the girls, the realization that your favorite movie is starting on HBO right when you turn on the TV. Simply put she was fabulous.

Unfortunately Jenny developed pneumonia about three months after she started watching Hailey. She was off work for a couple of weeks. Hailey went into the deepest depression that a Wiggle watching 5 year old who has everything she could ever possibly want can enter into. Her life was off kilter. No more spontaneous shopping and no more lunches of straight up butter.

When Jenny returned to work all healthy and eager to see Hailey, Hailey was overjoyed. Fun Jenny was back! Hailey ran up to Jenny and hugged her and said she was so happy to have her back. Upon my leaving for work, Hailey took Jenny by the hand and asked her to go upstairs to her room. When they entered Hailey’s bedroom, Hailey said, “You have got a lot of work to do. Just look at my room since you have been gone. Mommy tried to make me clean it but I didn’t want to.” Oh yah, that’s my daughter. You can imagine how desperately I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me when I heard about this. The pathetic thing is that Jenny found it all amusing and she cleaned the little brats room.

Just in case you are wondering, Hailey does clean her own room, and we asked Jenny to please not clean up after Hailey. But you can see how I can sympathize with the challenges in finding a great babysitter. It seems we have always gone from one extreme to the other. Let me share with you the other extreme.

The other extreme is a teenage, Cell Phone Junkie, gum chomping, girl who can only say, “Yah,” when the phone is not in her hand. When I just need to go out on a date with Tom, the Cell Phone Junkie will do. What annoyed me about the Cell Phone Junkie was, well actually a number of things. When Tom and I returned home on the last night that we had Cell Phone Junkie babysit, I walked into a kitchen sink piled high with dirty dishes. Macaroni and cheese was smeared all over the counters. The sugar bowl was on the counter with a spoon sticking out of it and clumps of sugar stuck to it. $100 says it was Hailey who convinced Cell Phone Junkie that I allow her to eat sugar straight from the sugar bowl. Hailey has progressed from butter to sugar. Choose your poison. Beach towels are lying all over the floor. Apparently the girls went swimming like 20 times and not only needed a new towel after each time but failed to pick any of them up. All the relaxation and enjoyment of my night out with Tom was sucked out of me like fat pulled from a liposuction machine. I take Cell Phone Junkie home, thank her for watching the girls and get the usual, “Yah,” and head back home. When I walk in the door, I see Tom walking into the kitchen from the back porch with a noticeable scowl of annoyance and carrying…soaked paper towel?!?! I guess in addition to allowing my children to eat sugar straight from the sugar bowl, I also allow them to take whole rolls of paper towel, soak them in water, and throw them on the trampoline simply for the joy of seeing the clumps splatter all over the place and ultimately dry in disgusting odd shapes. Why you might ask? Well, according to the daughters the next day, “because we thought it would be fun”.

So in the words of my linguistic Cell Phone Junkie babysitter, “Yah,” it’s hard to find a good babysitter.