My wife and I wanted to celebrate a new home purchase and a new business and a new country. We are waiting for the immigration folks in Canada to approve her application, and when they do we will move to Canada to start our new life, complete with universal health care, legal gay marriage, de-criminalized marijuana, bilingual schools and most of my extended family (mother, brother, sister, 1 niece, 2 nephews).
It was the first time I have been out for a posh dinner with my wife in over two and a half years. The first and last time we had a babysitter, our 9 month old was AWOL with our babysitter for about 6 hours. The babysitter was a nice 18 year old girl who use to work in child care at my wifes gym. She really liked my son, and he liked her. They got along great. Until that day she came to babysit and got permission to take my son to the park. She left for the park at about 1 pm.
At about 5 pm we had contacted the police.
The babysitter was not answering her cell phone and our 9 month old was unaccounted for. What had appeared to be a dream babysitter was quickly turning into a nightmare. We called the police and explained the situation, we called a couple that were friends of ours who had great contacts with the local police, the husband had been a beat cop in the town and his wife knew most of the officers working that day. They helped us raise the profile of our case. We had contacted the mother of the babysitter and feelers were being sent out to all the friends of the babysitter that they needed to get in touch with her right away.
We were perhaps an hour short of an Amber alert. The babysitter finally turned on her phone and returned one of our 30+ un-answered phone messages. She was just showing off our son to all of her friends. Evidently she really wanted a little boy like ours herself. The police gave her a stern lecture after she arrived with our baby happy though hungry and past his bedtime.
We met her about 2 years later in a local mall and she had her own newborn baby.
Well tonight we had our first night out with a babysitter since then. We went to a fancy restaurant to celebrate our new life. Our babysitter tonight was about as close as is possible to family. A mid forties woman known as Auntie x (name redacted) who has two grown children of her own. A woman whom we have celebrated almost every Thanksgiving since 1999. As close as you can get to family without genetic bonds.
It was fun to have a night out.
The only thing that bothered me about the night out and restaurant (besides the bill) was that we were the only couple there at the restaurant. It appeared to be all corporate parties. I guess most couples cannot afford to have a fancy dinner these days.