I knew when we moved here to the land of $600,000 homes and a Lexus in every other driveway that things would be different. But what I didn't expect was how freaking hard it would be to find a babysitter. Why do you ask?
Because everyone seems to have a nanny.
A typical exchange on my babysitter hunt goes something like this:
New Neighbor: Hi, welcome to the neighborhood! Is there anything you need help with?
Me: Thanks, it's wonderful here! *slight pause* Well I'm trying to find a babysitter. You can't just look those up in the phone book, you know! *nervous laugh*
New Neighbor: *blank stare* We have a nanny. *end of conversation*
Or...
The side effect of living where people can afford over half a million dollar homes and new Cadillac SUV's is that their teenage daughters don't need jobs. You remember how some people thought we were being cheap paying our babysitter in Ohio $10 an hour? That's because if we paid her anymore, her parents would have been offering to watch the kids. Gotta love small Midwest towns where the majority of the population makes minimum wage.
So we don't need a nanny (I'm a stay at home mom for a reason!) and there are no neighborhood teenage girls who are willing to give up their Friday nights to make $50. Actually I take that back, we did get a flyer tucked into our mailbox from two sisters (twelve and fourteen years old) who are looking for babysitting jobs. Twelve is not a teenager. Twelve is only 4 years older than Zach. I suppose we could hire them both at the same time but $20 an hour to go out without 5 kids? I'll wait for the movie to come out on dvd and order delivery.
I know there has to be some nice 16+ year old out there and trust me, I'm practically stalking every person I meet. Neighbors, nice church lady, parents at the school's open house, new therapist (like how I sneaked that one in?), Girl Scout leaders... Greg thinks I missed a good opportunity during the PTA's Market Day on Wednesday but first, Market Day is 2 hours of intense box lifting, sorting, and waiting on customers and second, those moms probably all have nannies too. Next PTA function, I'll hit up all the parents just in case.
So here I am... "I'm looking for a babysitter, do you know anyone who might be interested?"
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