Dear Babysitter: We Definitely Know What We're Doing, But if You Have Any Helpful Tips Let Us Know

Thank you all for your advice and encouragement last week. We still haven't made The Big Decision yet, but (and get ready for the sappiest thing I might ever say on this blog) every comment  felt like a hug or high five from all the people I care so much about. It was very grounding, and made my heart swell and all that good stuff.

source

ahem...

We are getting ready to go on an early anniversary/Mark's 40th Birthday trip to the Cinque Terre in Italy. Without the kids.

GLORY and HALLELUJAH.

A young hipster couple we know will stay with the kids while we are gone, and I've been thinking of all the things I need to tell them about.

Which leads me to a bit of a conundrum: should I tell them about all our parenting strategies that don't work at all? And should I tell them about the ineffective strategies that we like to pretend are helping, but really just make things worse? Or should I just show them where my chocolate stash is?

This reminds me of a panel discussion I went to once, where one of the panelists gave a single suggestion, and then said to the audience I don't really know, do any of you have any ideas? 

I don't think she understood how panels work.

But I'm not judging because I don't think I really understand how parenting is supposed to work, and that's why I'm hoping the hipsters will come up with some solid parenting strategies to help us deal with our kids.

I'm imagining we'll have an email conversation like this, about 24 hours in:

Mrs. Hipster: Hi! So, what do you normally do when Sam and Nate make kissing noises just to bother Mia, and she starts screaming, and then they do it more, and then she screams louder, and nobody will stop, and now they're all trying to kill each other? 

Me: Well, what would you normally do in a situation like this?  

Mrs. Hipster: What do you normally do in a situation like this? 

Me:  Ummm, I personally believe that Super Nanny because Love and Logic and the uh, attachment parenting out there, such as, uh, Talking and uh, the Feelings, everywhere like such as, and it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up a future, for us. 

Mrs. Hipster: That's not really helpful, or even a coherent sentence. 

Me: Oh, you want a solution that works? Yeah, I don't have any of those, but there's a large amount of chocolate hidden behind the sauce pans in the kitchen. 


This is why we need to get away.