Last week Charlie was out of town and I needed to be somewhere. Usually if Andy is gone I will ask the girl across the street to come over for a few hours and watch the Sarah and Amanda, but Andy was home and she is the same age as Andy so that was a no go. When he is home I usually get one of our teenage babysitters to watch all of them - play with the girls and leave Andy alone only telling him when it's time for him to go to bed.
This time I thought I would try something different. Andy knows how much I pay our babysitters and knows I pay them well. You always pay your babysitters well because a) then they are almost always available for you and b) because they are taking care of your kids. So I decided to ask Andy if he wanted to babysit the girls, but first I had to lay down some ground rules. He was required to pay attention to them (that sounds easy but with him you never know) and play with them (what they wanted to play, as any babysitter would do). He also had to put them to bed.
He wasn't completely excited about it but he's in a money making mode so agreed. I also was going to be less than a mile from the house so if anything really happened I could be home in less than five minutes. The girls weren't thrilled because they love all of their female babysitters, but they didn't get a lot of say. Honestly, I love our babysitters too but I also like the idea of keeping the money in the family.
So I left for two hours and when I came home the house was still standing. There were no broken bones, everything was in order and the girls were in bed. They were still awake and when I checked on them they said they were scared, but they couldn't really tell me what they were scared of. Nobody was traumatized and we just might be able to do it again.
With the amount of traveling that Charlie has been doing lately, I see this as a win-win. I won't do it often, but I know that it's always an option.
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