…she already knows.

Last weekend we made the bold move of leaving our baby with a stranger while we went out for a nice dinner with friends. We arranged for her to watch the little guy for four hours, but with travel to and from the restaurant, it ended up being more like five. When we finally got home, I had to shell out a whole bunch of cash to the babysitter.

Going out for a night ended up costing us a small fortune. Oh, and the kid? Slept soundly the entire time the babysitter was there. Obviously.

Don’t get me wrong, we needed the babysitter.

It’s not like we were about to leave the kid sleeping in his crib and head out for a night on the town. And she was great: my son didn’t die and she didn’t drink my can of Welch’s Grape soda. So she gets an A+ as far as I’m concerned.

But holy cow, babysitters are expensive! Maybe things will change a bit when our son is older and/if we move to the suburbs (I imagine we’d be able to get away with paying a middle-schooler a few bucks to watch TV with our toddler), but here in NYC it’s not cheap.

It can be hard to justify leaving the kid at home to go out when it costs us double what it might if we brought the kid along. Of course if we did that we’d be home by 8pm and suddenly we’d be spending 300 bucks a month just to keep our cabinets stocked with Grey Goose and growlers of Sixpoint. So it’s a trade-off.

Compounding matters is that since we know we’re spending a bunch on the sitter, it can’t just be any old date night. We definitely aren’t going to the movies! It has to be a fucking RAGER, complete with steaks, cigars, strippers, dancing on the bar, puking, random hookups, ill-advised drug use and more. All within the four-to-five hour window we have.

Unfortunately, if we both stumble home with booze on our breath and penises (penii?) drawn on our faces, the babysitter will both not only not feel right about leaving the baby with a couple of drunko parents, she’ll also never sit for a couple of drunkos like us ever again.

Which means that, despite the cost, we need to hire the occasional babysitter, and when we do, we can’t go all out like we used to. After all, we have a baby.

A spiteful little baby that doesn’t want Mom and Dad to have any fun ever again for the rest of their lives!

It’s all a compromise, is what I’m saying. And bitching, really, is what I’m doing (but you’ve been to my blog before so you knew that already…)

Yes, we need the occasional night without the baby. And we need to be confident that the person who watches our kid is competent and responsible and qualified. And those things come at a premium. Especially on the weekends. And we need to not get blacked out, unless we plan to hire the babysitter for the whole weekend. And God knows we can’t afford that!

So yeah, despite all the whining, we’re going to hire her again. And we’re going to let her bleed us dry again. We have little choice; our families live too far away!

But next time, would it be too much to ask for the kid to throw a fit while we’re out? Come on, son! At least make the babysitter earn that cash!