Friday, September 28th, 2007...7:49 am
a model babysitter
The moon is almost full so….I hired a sitter the other night. Her greatest feat: getting my child to sleep. Yahoo! A sleeping Kid when I returned! I don’t even get that with DH at home! (ok, he might actually get Kid to bed on his own….after a seven hour tickle fest and late night grocery run and cookie baking event)
So, house not burned down, dog not lost, Kid asleep. Pretty dang good. I’ll be calling her again. I just won’t leave her alone with DH for too long. Unless I want to see him fumble and snort extra loud at his own jokes…which can really be so sad.
The thing is….she, like every other sitter we’ve had here, is just plain gorgeous. Honestly. What’s up with that?? 9 out of 10 Bainbridge sitters (we’ve not actually had 10 sitters….) are 6′ tall, clear, sparkly eyes and look like they just flip-flopped their little hot selves off of America’s Next Top Model.
Right off the bat, I figure, I am screwed. It was like having a blind date on opposite day.
Crap! She’s hot!
She’ll never be available again. She’ll have boys crawling all over her. I can’t compete with that. My Kid is a pain by comparison and provides no ego boost whatsoever.
I swear I’ll give her Benadryl before you come over….I’ll run her around the block seven times on her tricycle….I’ll wake her up extra early that morning, so she’ll be asleep by the time you put down your purse.
Sure, there’s the money aspect. We pay (what seems like a lot when you consider it is tax-free cashola for someone who never graduated college). Think about it, though. You’re 17 or 18, hot, and poor. Which would you prefer? A guy buying you things or spending hour upon hour trying to entertain Curious George on speed? Granted most sitters in my zip code are not poor and yet somehow charge like the mafia neighborhood protection program. And get fat tips to boot! I imagine them at home with mommy or daddy the financial broker giving advice on negotiating.
I know, I know, they are watching our children, our treasures. It IS an important job. But how many jobs out there get compensated commensurately with the mission? For example, I’m still not getting paid for this.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ll never see her again.
Better refresh my Netflix queue. It’s going to be a long winter.
Update: The sitter has announced that in less than two weeks, her family is moving to California (for her modeling career??). Okay, so it wasn’t a social life interfering. Still. Gone.
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10 Comments
September 28th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Yup, I’d kiss that one goodbye if I were you!
There are some days that I thank the gods I have a “built in” babysitter!
I guess the biggest bonus for us is we don’t do a whole lot of activities without the kids in tow.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
“I guess the biggest bonus for us is we don’t do a whole lot of activities without the kids in tow.”
Um, Jenn, biggest bonus?? Hm…….
Actually, we just don’t leave the house together, DH and me!
September 28th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
So funny and so true………we are both amazed that each sitter we try out is taller and more beautiful than the last. Must be the water? i was going to call you to ask you if you liked her because I emailed her to see if she were available on a Friday in late October. Rustin thinks I’m crazy because I clean the house spotless and feed the kids before a sitter comes over (or at least get dinner ready)…….trying to make it as nice and “easy” as possible so she’ll WANT to come over again. Who knew I would someday be “courting” a sitter.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
courting a sitter — that is a great title for this!!
I did like her. My house was not spotless when I returned, however…….but it hasn’t been all year.
September 29th, 2007 at 1:27 am
Funny how the babysitter dynamic has totally done a 180 since my teen days. My Bainbridge neighborhood — Eaglecliff and Deercliff roads, off Ferncliff — was a pretty kid-heavy area back in the day, and I’d sometimes get the call to sit with some little kids if the parents in question had exhausted their lists of available girls (including my sister). This was in the late 1970s, and the pay ranged from $1 to $2 an hour.
The community bulletin board at the IGA (Ace Hardware occupies the building now) was packed with handwritten index cards from girls ages 10 to 16 hawking their babysitting resumes. Every parent of youngsters I knew had their own regular babysitter and at least a few backups, most of whom were absurdly grateful to get the call.
Jobs for kids on Bainbridge in those days were few and far between. There was babysitting, paper routes, mowing lawns, bagging at T&C or the IGA, busing tables at the few restaurants, lifeguarding … and, maybe, if your family had an “in,” towel-boy or grounds-crew work at Wing Point or Meadowmeer.
I remember busing tables at the old Saltwater Cafe, at the head of Parfitt Way and Madison Avenue, the summer I was 16 … a job I got only because about four other kids with more experience or connections dropped out. I hustled my gluteal tissue off for $3.35 an hour plus a meager cut of the waitress tips.
But now, kids have more options on Bainbridge … and there are more parents with little ones on the island. What’s the going rate now, I wonder? $10 an hour? More?
But what the hell do they get “tips” for? Since when do babysitters get tips? Or is that what the men pay for the guilty involuntary thoughts they have when they look upon these hot, nubile teen girls?
September 29th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Yeah, I guess that’s not a “bonus” if you’re looking for alone time, but we’ve resigned ourselves to not so much alone time for the next few years. Although we do have a built in babysitter in Wild, I also don’t want to take TOO much advantage of that and create animosity!
September 29th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
You need to find a homely spinster babysitter.
They never move on in life.
Oh wait, I can’t afford a babysitter, my advice is useless! I am the damn babysitter.
*sigh*
At least my husband thinks I’m hot babysitter material.
September 29th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Oh, Jim, times have changed. I don’t know if there are that many littler kids needing bigger kid sitters or if the bigger kids are too busy with all the “activities” one must do to get to college. Or they get enough money from mom and dad to not have the urge to work. Who knows. I remember getting $2/hr and being excited! Tips are to get that sitter back, I guess! Frightening. Oh, and rates seem to be $10/hr for one kid, high school graduate sitter. HS kids get maybe $7 or $8/hr, I think, if you can get them (these are all those who can drive themselves).
I can relate, Jenn. Date time is sometimes overrated! It needs to be reaaaaally good to justify the sitter….
Yes, Moosh! We need a homely spinster! There just aren’t that many. Seems like the teenagers and the retirees don’t want jobs here….
And there’s no better way to get me mad than by calling me my kid’s babysitter!! Argggggh!
October 1st, 2007 at 5:29 am
Think outside the box. You could use this to your advantage. He would surely be home to wait for the babysitter if you wanted go run errands or get a drink. Heck, I bet DH would even clean the house some if he knew the babysitter was coming over.
October 4th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
My babysitters are all hot too. What is with that? Maybe all teen girls all over the country are all just cute now. Maybe they always were?
My number one sitter is a home-school teen. She has weeknights available AND likes to get out of the house more!!
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