another day of graditude

I teach a writing class on Tuesday nights, and my mom usually babysits. My folks are vacationing in Mexico this week, so I called the kid across the alley to see if he could sit. He has done so before, with mixed results. Nothing “bad” has ever happened when the kids are in his care, but he’s done things like forget to turn off the overhead light when putting the baby to bed, and last time, he wouldn’t let my older son put the CD’s in the boom box because he didn’t believe we would allow this. He is very earnest and took a Red Cross Babysitting course and brought his certificate to show us when he came for his “interview” (a meeting which he insisted on having). But, he has just turned 13, and since a three-year-old and one-year-old are a lot for ME to handle, we generally use his services when we’re going out after the kids are in bed.
Tonight he didn’t show up. My class starts at 6:30, and he was to arrive at 5:30, which would give me just enough time to drive across town, park, check in at the office and get to my class. At 6:40 I phoned my brother’s house since they live close to the campus where I’m teaching to see if they would be home, but they were going out. I am GRATEFUL that the sitter they had hired for the evening to watch my niece happens to be the same woman who babysits in the nursery of the church we attend, so my kids know her. So, when I pulled up in the dark alley behind their building and handed my kids off saying, “the baby’s got teeth coming in and he’s been really fussy all day and neither one of them has napped and I hope no one poops because I forgot the diaper bag tim will be here by 7:30 to pick them up my class starts in three minutes gotta run bye,” I was very GRATEFUL it was someone they knew and I didn’t have to speed out of there leaving them in the dust with a complete stranger.