Babysitting Blues

One of the many perks of having my parents and sisters live so close is that we always have a trusted babysitter a phone call away. Since Ezra was just two months old my mom has watched him twice a week for a couple hours while I tutored. She later would occasionally watch him for full days while I substituted. My sisters have all babysat while T and I go out on dates. And Ezra is over at Kelly's quite frequently with out me. He has never cried when I leave, and if anything he gets peeved when it is time to go home. 
............
One day in April Tieba and I were invited to go out to dinner for my friend Karen's birthday.  We agreed to go with out thinking twice. Unfortunately when I looked at my calendar, I realized that Kel was working, my parents were babysitting, and Abby had plans.  All our babysitters were booked! Considering that Ezra was nearly a year and half and we were going to dinner 5 minutes away, we decided it was time to finally hire a non family member babysitter for the evening. We asked a girl from church that had high recommendations, prepared an extensive note for her, talked to Ezra all day about what we would be doing, and had his favorite- pizza- for dinner. 
I asked Autumn to come over 30 minutes before we had to leave. Unfortunately, she was running late and got here right when we needed to leave. So, the trade off wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but when T and I left the condo, Ezra was miraculously in good spirits. We couldn't believe it- and shouldn't have! When we were half way to the Mill Creek Town Center we texted to see how he was doing and she said he had started to cry, but was "okay". 
We ate dinner, enjoyed our time with friends, tried not to think about Ezra, and were probably gone for an hour and a half...  When we walked up the stairs to our condo and approached the landing, we could hear Ez hollering. We were greeted with Ez in the hallway outside the bathroom, wailing. His eyes were poofy. His voice was hoarse. And the babysitter was ready to run. He cried the entire time we were gone.
Needless to say, we paid her a ridiculous amount and have never had a non family member babysitter since. 

M