Full moon fiasco

I'm not sure what it is: are we unmemorable? Do we not pay enough? Or, like I like to look at it, are our kids so good that we don't stick out in babysitters' minds? Clearly, this third observation no longer applies after last night. I jokingly told Tim yesterday when he got home that I hoped the babysitter showed up...and by 5:45 I was on the phone to our sitter, eating my words. It happened again: she had forgotten. In her defense (do I give her any? hmmm), this was her first offense; the other sitters who had forgotten were all in Tucson. But this was the third or fourth time in three years that a sitter has not shown up to our house, and it has always been for a semi-big engagement (two prior anniversary dinners, last night's squadron Christmas party).

After profuse apologizing on her part, she mentioned that she had a bit of a conflict: she is moving this weekend and her landlord was supposed to do a walk-through with her at 8:30pm. As I waited for her to tell me that she would call the landlord and reschedule (obviously we were on the books before the landlord, and also, the party was starting in 15 minutes), she hemmed and hawwed and asked if it would be all right if she took the girls with her back to her house for the inspection. *This should have tipped me off to future issues.* I said that wouldn't work, due to a plethora of reasons, and she said she would "work something out" and would be over "in a few minutes". I immediately called our neighbor, Jen, who's son, Douglas, has watched the girls before. Thankfully, Douglas was going to be around, so I called our sitter back and told her that he would watch the girls for an hour while she went back to her house to meet the landlord.

I present rule #1: if you have to work this hard to make the babysitter issue work out, you probably should just cancel your event.

Our sitter showed up at 6:15, with plentiful apologies, and I gave her the lowdown on how to deal with bedtime for the girls (they get to have the Christmas lights on in their room until they disobey enough times to warrant turning them off; they need to stay in their room; they need to be quiet; if they are not quiet by 8:30, put Claire back in her room in the crib). I asked her if she had heard from the landlord: no. I called Jen and told her that our sitter would likely call Douglas around 8:00. We left.

The oblivious couple enjoys a night out at the squadron Christmas party.

We had a good time. Before dinner started at 7:00, I called the sitter to see how things were going. "Fine!" Had she heard from her landlord? No.

At 10:15, as we were driving up to our house, I noticed the first sign of things not-quite-right. "Where is her car?" I asked Tim. Once inside, I noticed Jen's slippers by the front door. Jen came tip-toeing around the corner: "Shhhhhh. Don't wake them." She had a serious look in her eye. And she looked sort of frightened at the possibility of the children waking up.

"Why are you here?" I hissed. She said that the sitter called her at 8:15, Douglas was in the shower because he had just finished a workout, so she came over to watch the girls. She never heard from the sitter again. She just up and left, and did not return. Let me say this again, as I'm not sure it's clear: the sitter left and Never Came Back. And when said babysitter left, she did not give bedtime instructions to Jen.

Apparently, after Jen arrived, the girls decided to rejoice in the light of the full moon. Kate could be heard from her room: "Miss Jen's here!" They had to go to the bathroom. They had to read another book. At one point, not long after she had gotten them in bed, Jen could hear Claire wailing from their room, "Miss Jen!" When she went upstairs, she found Claire with her pants and diaper half-off. Kate had tried to remove them after she had taken her own pants off. The children argued about whether the Christmas lights should be on or off. They discussed the merits of having the fan on or off. Jen mentioned bringing bungee cords to the house next time to keep them in their beds. In other words, it was a disaster. When Douglas called, she told him to stay home for fear that his showing up would set them off again.

I am pretty sure Jen is never going to speak to us again.

After she left, I looked at Tim and mused, "I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't had Jen come over....Do you think...?"

Tim's response: "Number one, there is no way of knowing what would have happened, so don't ask, and number two, you probably don't want to know the answer."