We've lived here for about 8 months, and just haven't bothered to hook up with any babysitters yet. My friend Deb will watch the kids for me if I have a midday appointment or whatever, but I don't like to ask her to watch them in the evenings so that we can go out to dinner - the last thing she needs during the dinner/bath/bed chaos time is 2 more kids. She already has 2 little ones AND a husband, that's enough.

So, we just haven't looked. And we were spoiled in Keene, because him being a high school teacher meant that he had access to unlimited qualified, smart, trustworthy kids to babysit, so we didn't go out often but we went out whenever we wanted to.

Two days ago, then, Willem said, "Everyone in my department is going out on Friday, do you want to go?" And I said no, because whenever we took the kids to those out-after-work things in Keene, it ended up being like show-and-tell - "Here's my wife, here's my kids, now watch while she takes care of them while the rest of us have adult conversation." Not all that fun for me, I'd rather just stay home or go somewhere kid-friendly or, you know, poke knitting needles in my ears until I smell colors. So he said, "We need a sitter." I said, "Sure, sometime."

He took that to mean, "Get one ASAP." He asked a couple of his former students who are now in school with him, but they're busy, and they live 20 miutes away, and they're in college... so a lot of disinterest there. So this morning, he said, "I can't get a sitter in time." Well, yeah. I figured he meant for next month - no way is two days enough time to arrange that, especially since I need time to meet them, check references, act intimidating and efficient, etc. So I said, "No big deal, I'll call the high school and see if I can get any recommendations there."

He just called me to ask if I'd had any luck lining someone up for tonight. Ummmm..... no. Though I have put a big sign in my front yard saying, "Hey, pedophiles and thieves, anyone want to come spend time alone in my home with my babies tonight??" I'm hopeful we'll get some good responses from that.