Outsourcing

Dutch has a babysitter, Daisy, who's been picking her up from daycare and hanging out with her for 2 hours once a week. Daisy is an earnest college freshman, approximately four-and-a-half feet tall, and Dutch loves her. So far they've gone grocery shopping, done ballet performances at Daisy's apartment, and gotten hot cocoa. We pay Daisy the paltry sum of $8 an hour, and in exchange, she is scrupulously punctual, amuses Dutch without breaking her, emails us photos (like these!), and has promised us a DVD of the ballet episode.

I feel a little exploitative. While $8 an hour is a little pricey for a babysitter (but cheap for a nanny), it's also just barely over minimum wage. We can't really afford it, but it's barely worth Daisy's time, and certainly not proportionate to the value we put on the work that goes into taking care of our girl. As far as we can tell, Daisy gives the task her full attention, and does a terrific job.


We should be paying her a lot more. But we can't.

Also, Dutch is going to be attending her daycare fulltime, starting next month (hooray!), so we won't be needing Daisy for regular babysitting anymore, just for occasional weekend or evening sits. Dutch will miss her, and so will we, though we'll certainly enjoy hanging onto our $16 a week.

P.S. Yes, that's not cocoa on her cheek - Dutch fell down and scraped her face . (Just before going to see the dentist who last saw her after she'd fallen and knocked out her tooth. He seemed a little suspicious.)