For the most part, I love being a stay home mom. I’ve pretty much gotten my groove with Tru and the housework and the blog and the rest of the other 15 jobs I hold down. My day runs like clockwork from the time I get up at 7-ish and by the time I get to bed at a little past midnight, I like to give myself a pat on the back for the awesome job I’ve done.
The only thing is that unlike most mothers who can take the occasional night off and leave the kid(s) with the maid, we’ve got to factor Tru in for all our activities. Occasionally, my mom and my sis will watch him for the night, but that’s a trump card I try to save for the really urgent stuff like movies (hey, it’s the only entertainment I’ve got these days) and all.
Without a maid at home, our other option is to get a babysitter in for the night while we take a break. But getting a good babysitter is like striking the lottery. First of all, there aren’t that many of those around for me to pick from. After trawling the online classifieds, I realized that there are 2 kinds of babysitters available.
1. Really old women (usually retirees past the age of 60)
old babysitter
Most of those in this group require you to drop your kid off at their place (I’m guessing its too much of a hassle for them to travel) and the curfew is usually by 10 or 11 at night. No disrespect to older folks, but they usually stuff them with candy and make them watch TV to keep them occupied for the night.
And I’m afraid the intensity of looking after a kid with ADD and a sugar high may cause a mild cardiac arrest for the elderly ones, which would result in a complete nightmare rather than a night off.
2. Really young girls (usually teenagers with NO kid experience)
young babysitter
They don’t mind coming over to your place to watch the kid, but they probably got everything they know about babies from movies like Juno and Knocked Up. I could be paranoid here, but chances are, they’ll dump the kid in his cot and blast angsty music over my stereo to drown out the screams for the better part of the night.
The rest of the time, they’ll be on the phone with some dude they’re too young to be seeing anyway. And that’s if I’m lucky. On a bad day, I might end up with one who’ll invite the dude over to hanky panky on the couch.
I could be wrong here, but I’m reluctant to go with babysitters unless I’m really desperate.
Then while talking to a friend one day, she suggested a really cool idea. I could get some of my married-and-may-eventually-have-kids friends to come over to watch Tru under the excuse of giving them some hands-on experience with a real kid. So it’ll be a win-win situation. We get to take a night off with total peace of mind and also do a kind deed. I mean, having actual experience with a kid is underrated. Which also explains why post-natal depression is on the rise, cos new mothers are not prepared for the intensity of taking care of an screaming baby.
So tonight, we’ll be out galavanting till the wee hours of the night while some friends come over to watch Tru. My plan is to tire him out completely in the day so he’ll be sedated (if not passed out from exhaustion) by the time it hits 7pm.
I think it’s going to be so much fun (for me, at least). It’ll be like my swan song before I pop.
