finding a sitter

One of my least favorite tasts as a mom is finding a babysitter. I have avoided this for most of my "mom life" by finding 1 wonderful person at a time to be our "nanny". At this point in time, however, we no longer need a "nanny" and so we are back to finding sitters.

This past weekend I was invited to go on a date with my husband and another couple. This offer brought 50% excitement and 50% dread. Yay, a date. Drag, a sitter. I don't mind having a sitter. I don't mind leaving my kids with a sitter. I just dislike the process of Finding a sitter.
After a few calls and no luck here is what happened:

"Kyle, please go and get my cell phone so I can think of someone to call to watch you kiddo's tonight."

Shortly thereafter I hear Kyle coming down the steps on my phone. "Yes, this is Kyle. Hi how are you? My mom is looking for a babysitter for tonight and I was wondering if you were free and if we could come to your house. Tacos? Perfect. Ok, well, here is my mom."

At this point I am standing in my kitchen in shock looking at my 9 year old son with disbelief and I could only ask 1 question: "WHO IS IT?"

"Oh, it is Barb Irwin, Mom." Barb Irwin? She is a wonderful lady from church who has helped me fix my screens and brought me meals when I was sick and 1 time even took 3 of my kids for the evening so I could rest. She has 4 kids of her own who are all in high school and college. Barb Irwin?

"Hi, Barb....Uh..how are you?"

At this point I hear Barb tell me about how nice and polite my son is and how she would love to have them over for dinner and she was planning to make them taco's one night this summer anyway and they don't have any plans and what time is good?

So my children went to Barb's house Saturday night. They took their bikes and their Pj's. They ate taco's, managed to convince Mr. and Mrs. Irwin to get their bikes down off the rack and ride with them, went out for ice cream and were all in Pj's mostly asleep on their bed when we returned from a wonderful date to pick them up.

The funny thing about this little story is that if Kyle had asked me, as he should have, to call Mrs. Irwin, I would certainly have said NO. We wouldn't want to impose on another family! However, my children had the time of their lives. This morning Teagan asked if she could go there again tonight.

So many thanks goes out to the Irwin's for loving our family and especially our kids. And much to my shock and inital horror, much thanks goes out to Kyle for taking care of finding a babysitter!

If you need help managing your household, let me know, I'll send Kyle over for a few hours! :-)

Blessed to be momofkrit and woj,
KT

(momofkrit - mom of Kyle, Rhia, Iain, and Teagan, and wife of Jamie(Aaron))