babysitter scramble

Typically, Amanda's mom will watch Gracelyn a few times a week when Amanda teaches and takes dance class. Unfortunately, today there was a last minute exception. Amanda's mom had to take her mother to see a doctor for an urgent appointment. This meant that we would have to figure out what to do with Gracelyn during the time when both Amanda and I were scheduled with other things. We found ourselves with a few options: Amanda could skip teaching; Judd could leave work way early; and, ugh...a babysitter. We pursued each of these options in the above order. Amanda couldn't find a sub for her classes; plus, her boss is all funny about her missing work already since she recently requested a number of days off for our planned vacations and weddings. I had a few meetings with the higher ups at the conflicted timeslot, so option two wasn't so good. Finally, we decided to go with option three, the babysitter. But who do we get? Fortunately, Amanda has a very good network of dance friends who were all gracious enough to help us out. I was scared though. Gracelyn has never had a babysitter and she has only ever met this person once or twice at parties. Also, she would awake from her nap only to stare a stranger in the face. Based on her recent development of separation anxiety (known to affect babies at her age), I feared that she would be a handful and that Caitlin would be faced with a difficult baby for a few hours. To my surprise, Gracelyn received an excellent report. In fact, the only time she was fussy was when I walked through the door. Thanks, Caitlin, for your help and thanks to everyone else who volunteered to help out. We really appreciate everything. What sucks for Caitlin is that she may have accidentally positioned herself as a reliable resource for being Gracelyn's babysitter. Hehe!