Adventures in Babysitting and Lost Kidneys

The other night I had a total "How did I get here?" moment.  (No, this wasn't one of those times I was left in a tub of ice, with a sign next to me that read, "Call 911 because your kidneys have been harvested."  Because let's be honest - that's a major moment of, "How the beep did I get here?")  No, compared to that this was pretty mundane, but still gave me pause...Ah, shoot I did it again - too much build up! Isn't there some creative writing teacher out there that could teach me on how to not put myself in these writing conundrums?!  Anyone? I am about to compare a black market crime of stealing some date rape girl's kidneys to...wait for it...experiencing my first babysitter.  See...just awful.

Anyway, yes, the other night the husband and I left our less than 15 lbs., 8 month old baby, for the first time, in the "responsible" hands of a 15 year old babysitter.  Now, leaving her wasn't the moment in struck me of how crazy life is, because my baby was asleep before the babysitter got there, and remained asleep the entire time.  Again, let's recap, she was asleep the ENTIRE time and I still paid this kid to text for two hours inside my house.  Speaking of black market crime...

No, the moment I questioned how life had gotten full circle for me, was when I had to drive the babysitter home.  Oh, how I hated these awkward drives home.  Sometimes it would be done by the father, who reeked of some cocktail and asked stupid questions like, "Does your dad like his job?"  "Do your parents travel much?"  And then, while checking to see if the door was open, and if I could survive if I rolled out of the car, I would answer, "Yeah, totally."  Or I would have to endure the mother driving me home, which consisted of her desperately trying to get me to say how gifted her kid was, and how out of all the other kids in the neighborhood, he was clearly the most polite and well-adjusted.  And of course, the whole time this pathetic questioning went on, all I could think about was, I hope they didn't mind I ate that whole frozen pizza, put their kids to bed about an hour earlier than they had indicated and went through their CDs and photo albums.

So, there I was being the awkward mom and hating myself for it.  I tried to stop myself, but before I knew it, I asked, "Did she wake up at all while we were gone?" (Full well knowing that she didn't wake up because of my quasi creepy baby camera I have hooked up to my phone.)  And then when she said no, I said, "Yeah, she's been sleeping through the night since she was three months old."  CREEPY.  And then, if that wasn't awkward enough, as I was handing her the hard earned compensation money I said, while giving her a roll of ten ones, "Sorry, I work at a strip joint and this is all I had after a long night of..."  And there we sat, one confused 15 year old, and one old/pathetic 34 year old.

On the flip side our two frozen pizzas were still in the freezer when I got back....so, I'll be hiring her again.