A Tale of Two Babysitters

Date night requires childcare, and we are lucky to have several options - sometimes we have Calista stay late, and we have a few kids from church who are willing, as well as some students from school who love little kids, and even a couple of teacher friends who are sometimes free.  (in more ways than one:))  A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to attend a fireside with Elder Holland.  He was in the UAE to dedicate the first LDS chapel in the Middle East - in Abu Dhabi.  It was stake conference, but since the new chapel wasn't big enough to hold everyone, the main meeting was just broadcast to our building in Dubai, then he and his wife came to our little building for a fireside that evening.  Since the youth were invited, we decided to ask a girl from school to babysit,  We had to leave early to make sure to get a seat, and the fireside lasted a couple of hours, so it was almost 10 when we got home.  Despite what I thought were clear instructions not to eat on the new couch, and to put Finley down at 7:30, and Will around 8, both kids were still awake, most surfaces were covered in cookie and cracker crumbs, juice boxes, empty and full were scattered around.  It kind of ruined our spiritual high from the amazing fireside. 

Last night we asked our friend from school to babysit, and invited her over for dinner beforehand to hear about her Week Without Walls trip to Borneo (that is Nate's biggest regret about moving to the high school - missing out on those trips.  He loved them.)  We left the kitchen filled with dinner dishes and hurried out the door to the show at school.  When we arrived home, she was calmly typing on her computer, toys were cleaned up, kids in bed and when I went into the kitchen for a drink, she had emptied all the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, loaded our dinner dishes, and handwashed everything that didn't fit in the dishwasher.  Makes us want to take advantage of our teacher friends more often for babysitting...