Anytime you leave your new baby for the first time, no amount of paper, spread sheets or power point presentations could ever prepare your sitter for the undeniably insane, albeit incredibly necessary list of details they are about to be presented with.
As your baby ages, subsequent children arrive on scene, those lists become more like an itemized drive-thru receipt; milk, diaper, bed.
But that first time, that’s when things become, well, silly.
We seem to treat our sitters (in many cases, our parents) as though they have never held a child or perhaps even met one.
We play those tapes, telling tales of being driven around in laundry baskets rather than five point harness car-seats, how we were caged in play-pens and were fed steak (chopped finely of course) as our first introduction to solids.
We assume our sitters couldn’t possibly be up for the challenge of handling our children and remind them to buckle our children into their baskets, remove the bungee on the playpen to allow for free roaming and to keep them hydrated.
In retrospect, if we really believed our sitters were as incompetent as these lists would imply, suggesting even with these strict and carefully drawn-up outlines we are still dealing with someone who reads at a grade two level in the special needs program, why would we ever, in a million years, leave them with our most prized possessions?
Within the first week of leaving Hanna with our regular babysitter, I watched a wolf walk behind my car onto her forested property. I quickly phoned her from my cell and explained what I had seen. Her response was, “Does that bother you?”
No. It doesn’t bother me to be sending my child to a violent animal emporium but I’m fairly certain I dressed her in a red-hooded sweat-shirt this morning. Note to self, add “no wolves” to the list.
Unfortunately, these lists do nothing but introduce frustration to what should be a wonderful visit with people who have raised as many if not more children than we ever will and for that reason, there is rebellion.
Bed at 8pm means if you call at 8pm, you will hear you children giggling in the background while eating ice cream.
Explaining on paper that the diaper genie has no bags in it will result in a couple of loaded diapers being wedged into the plastic tube for you to scoop out upon your return.
Microwave instructions equal a melted interior wall and an obvious smell of burnt popcorn through the still billowing smoke.
Outlining the various functions of the t.v. convertor means it will be blaring, left on and likely broadcasting Telemundo with nobody in the room.
It takes some time for us to realize we’re not perfect and just maybe we have asked these people to take care of our children because we not only trust them as people but we trust their judgement.
Note to self, add “Have Fun” to the list.
