DADWAGON

photo: Arthur Mouratidis

So we here in the Valley of Flowers are looking to break in a new babysitter. Don’t know why it reminds me of mutton-bustin’, except that the bustin’ of muttons remains one of my favorite sports, and you’ll miss this year’s Tobacco Valley Rodeo only if you’re a fool.

But while babysitters may not be as treacherous as a terrified sheep with a child on top, we still have little idea even what to look for. We have a few criteria: must speak Spanish and have papers. Preferably not too young? I like the idea of a babysitter who won’t throw her back out separating my two warring children. But as we’ve seen before, emotional intelligence is a big part of the job.

G-d love the interwebs, they’ve got resources:

About.com pitches in with a eminently clickable interview checklist. Babble hits the streets and asks a few parents, who have nothing helpful to say. Those morbid bastards at the Houston Fire Department have a list that focuses mostly on avoiding drownings and electrocution.

For the other side of the ledger, Sittercity.com, whom we’ve been using on occasion with some success, offers a how-to and how-not-to for babysitters making their own video ads. Too bad the video itself looks a bit like a snuff film.

In the end, I think it may be less about the interview and more about the extended tryout. There are some things you can only learn about a babysitter just from having used them for a while.

It’s a pain in the ass, I guess, but at least we’re not on the Au Pair circuit. I don’t think any Au Pair would want to live in the electrical closet in the basement, which is about the only excess living space we have. And I’ve always been wary of any year-long cohabitation arrangement that is preceded by nothing more than a few pages of application and a couple of phone calls.