Babysitters

A classic selfish thing to do when you have children is to have a date night with your spouse a couple of times a month, at least.  Marriage takes time and effort, but it is all-too-easy to neglect it.

Adam and I have never managed to do this.  We've been out alone together here and there since Sam came along, but never as a regular part of our lives.  We have a good excuse though: all that moving around.

The kind of sitters you can find on sittercity.com or through the local college charge $20/hour plus tip.  That means that just the babysitting for a quick dinner-date costs about $50-60.  Add a movie and you're talking about $100 or more.  We don't have that kind of money to throw around.  We have not lived in one place long enough to make local friends to share babysitters with, we have no family nearby, and we've never had time to tap into the local teenage pool of sitters, who are considerably cheaper.  Well, the last part has changed.  We have a few teenagers living within walking distance.  We're using one tonight for the first time, and she only charges $9/hour.  I offered her $10, but with a no-tip policy.  The best part is that her parents live directly across the street, so if she is uncertain about something but hesitates to call us or make a decision, she'll certainly go straight to them for advice.  Of course, I still made sure she had real sitting experience and checked her references.

Let the date nights begin!