Month 11: Hey Checkout Girl, Do You Babysit?

Looking for childcare sucks, people. Especially part-time childcare for the under-2 set. I’m a work-at-home mom, which means I work as much as I can, when I can. Now that my little one is walking, and has never been into napping much, that means almost never. Miles doesn’t tolerate long phone calls. He gets annoyed when I check my e-mail. He’s even been known to rip the mouse out of my hand and bite it with his five teeth.

Sure, I could work in the evenings and on weekends. Except that I have this thing called a husband, and he occasionally likes to spend time with me. Exchanging phone messages over the baby’s head as he flings peas from the high chair doesn’t exactly count as quality time, you know what I’m saying? And let’s be honest, I can barely follow the plot of “Two and a Half Men” after a long day with Miles, let alone form a coherent work-related thought.

For the past seven months, I’ve had a babysitter come to the house a couple afternoons a week to watch Miles while I work upstairs. That’s been great, although the older he gets the smarter he gets. He’s no longer fooled when mama waves bye-bye and heads upstairs. He now follows me and busts open the door. (A downside to living in an old house: none of the doors latch or lock properly.)Plus, our sitter’s leaving to take care of her granddaughter full time.

So I’ve been on the prowl for a new sitter. I’ve asked at church, at my gym’s day care, called local colleges, advertised online, responded to ads on Craigslist, asked friends of friends and sisters of neighbors. The result? Nada.

People either want more money or more hours. Except for the ones who want fewer hours. Finally I called a childcare locator service in my area. They dug around in their database and gave me some numbers for in-home day care centers. I called them all. They either didn’t have any openings for infants or weren’t accepting part-timers. A couple said they might have openings in January. JANUARY!!

Now, I don’t know what a decent sitter costs where you live, but around here, it ain’t cheap, apparently. I overheard this woman at the gym complaining that she’d had no takers on her ad for a $14-an-hour sitter. $14 AN HOUR?! Damn. These people are pricing me out of the market.

I don’t need an early-childhood education major. I don’t care if the sitter engages Miles in age-appropriate activities or teaches him sign language. I just need someone to chase him up the stairs, stop him from eating dog food, and keep him alive until I’ve done a couple hours of work. Is that so much to ask?

TIP O’ THE WEEK: 1) Move to where your parents or in-laws live, if they’re the babysitting-for-free sort. 2) Become independently wealthy.