What a Difference Three Hours Makes

Spending the whole day with Jada can wear Amy out, especially with her
thyroid and other issues. So we decided to try to spell her for one
morning in the middle of the week. We called up a friend, whose
teenage daughter is starting to pick up babysitting gigs, and made
arrangements for me to drop Jada off at their house on my way to work,
where they'd head to the park for the morning and then return home
before noon.

I walked halfway to the park with them and then veered left while they
went straight, never looking back, somewhat confident that everything
would be alright but admittedly a little worried. We had heard from
other parents who had used this babysitter that she was good, but
after all this was only our second foray into the world of
babysitting, and our first was with Amy's sister. But I resolved not
to make saying goodbye a big deal, so I marched off to work and told
myself everything would be OK.

I resisted the temptation to call the babysitter on her cell phone
mid-morning to see if she was doing alright, although I did send an IM
to Amy to call me once Jada got home. It turns out Jada had a blast
with her new friend, and was worn out from all the fun, knocking out a
three-hour nap that afternoon, an unusually long nap for the weekday.
And Amy was ecstatic: she got to sleep in, have some time in the house
to herself to relax and to clean, and then even more time to herself
after Jada went down for her nap.

So methinks we'll be doing this again. What a difference three hours makes!