Manipluating our poor babysitter!

Hannah is getting WAY to smart for her pants! We've been very fortunate in the past with sitters...we have 3 we use on a constant basis. Samantha, who lives 2 houses over and is just a complete sweety...she is 14 and has a brother that just turned 2 and 4 other siblings..so she is GREAT with kidos. Then Tara, who is in college, but her mom & dad live a block over and when she comes in town she knows to call us for extra babysittting money and we NEVER say NO to her coming over to watch the kidos. Then we have Ashton(i love that name for a girl), anyway, she is a bit younger...i think 12, maybe 13, quiet but very sweet. We see her a lot b/c they are outside many times when we go by on walks. Either way, we have some great sitters in our neighborhood...all living with in driving distance at night when we get home from a LONG night of partying...JUST KIDDING...we're ALWAYS home by 10p and 99% of the time we go to dinner and come home...that's it.

Anyway, back to my story. Hananh has had sitters pretty much since she turned one. We had a really great sitter in our old neighborhood(her mom was in my playgroup who had a daughter that was a month or two younger than Hannah...so she knew how to take care of babies)...anyway, since we don't get help from any of my family that lives here and have never depended on any of them to babysit...it's been great to have sitters that love to come over and we really do compensate well(i think). So, again back to the story.

Last night, Samantha(the sitter) came over at 7p. I think i may have told her the wrong time b/c we always leave at 730p, which is just enough time to get the girls dressed and down for the night so technically she only has to watch one baby(Hannah). But it was actually nice because she came over and got to interact with my shy(yeah, seriously they are really shy around people other than us) girls. Most importantly, she is just soo good with them...she really really tried hard to play with them...pick them up and get them to play with her...she's GREAT! So at 730p, we put the twins down for the night and left. I felt really good about out date night...like nothing could possibly go wrong...Hannah was so excited she didn't even look up to say bye to us. So we leave, and get to the restaurant, and everything is fine besides the annoying old idiot for a waiter we had. UGH! No biggie, we were OUT ALONE...and it was nice either way. We finally got our drinks...reminded the poor old waiter about what we wanted for an appetizer for the second time...and were just sitting around. I always make paul put his phone on the table...just so we can hear it in case of emergency...and it has NEVER RANG in the 2.5 years we've been leaving Hannah with a sitter. BUT, last night it did...i almost had a heart attack...i gave it to Paul to answer...as i was freaking out. Paul answered and it was Samantha...she said "Hannah wants to talk to ya'll"...he said OK! She got on the phone and was bawling...i mean hard core crying...she told Paul "I want to talk to mommy!!!" SO, i grabbed the phone and ran out the door so i could hear her...she kept saying "i fell off the couch and hit your laptop that was sitting on the couch with my elbow and it hurts"...O geeze...talking about playing the babysitter! Anyway, i FINALLY convinced her that i'd bring her home anything she wanted if she stopped crying so we could finish up our dinner and have a quiet nice evening away. She said "then bring me some lipstick and i'll be ok". I said "ok, we'll bring it when we get home...just calm down and be nice". We took our time because Samantha said everything was fine...but she insisted on calling to tell me about her elbow...which was actually her knee she hit. SO, we ended up home around 945p(our waiter took FOREVER with everything) and she was wide awake waiting for her lipstick...so luckily we had one hid from her..and Paul ran and grabbed it right when we walked in because she was waiting for it! UGH!

Anyway, to make this story as short as possible...this morning after it was all over and done with...she told me as she was giggling..."i made Samantha give me a cookie, and then i put it back b/c i didn't want it, so i made her give me an oatmeal cream pie and then some pretzels"...talking about some major manipulation of us and Samantha. Errr...i guess we're just going to have to set some ground rules for Hannah from now on now that she's going through this manipulation stage! :)

I'll take this as a lesson learned!