Stranger Danger

Close to the tail end of our trip, I finally threw in the towel and decided to let the front desk guy at our hotel find us a babysitter so that daddy and I could go out on our first real date since the rugrat arrived. A part of me was excited about the idea of putting on some fishnets and stepping out but a huge part was hoping that every babysitter in the town of Leon was on strike or booked. Turned out that someone was willing to come sit in our modest hotel room with my beloved late that evening. Dinner isn't served in this country until 9 p.m. which is insane, so the sitter had between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. to raid our suitcases and steal my child. I was a wad of nerves all day long and nearly jumped out of my skin when she finally knocked on the door. An elderly, grandmotherly Spanish woman calmly hobbled in and I was relieved to note her obvious age range. I mean, she couldn't run that fast if I had to chase her. She smelled nice and smiled broadly as she told me she couldn't speak English so in my broken Espanol, I explained to her things about the baby. Translating my info to her would read something like "Baby very good. Sleeping 10 minutes. Diapers big. Here. Things you need. My first time out from baby. Very nervous. Need drink. Milk here. No more. Kiss him. Love him. Very nervous." She kept repeating the word "tranquilo" over and over and over. Basically she was telling me to calm down but by the 10th or 11th time she said it, I was beginning to think she was recommending tequila or tranquilizers. I managed to leave with my date for the evening out but he didn't help matters by joking about Willem being kidnapped. I had to laugh when he reminded me of the Simpsons episode when Homer lost Maggie and called the lost baby hotline. They put him on hold and the hold music was the song "Baby Come Back." All was well though when we returned and the little one was sleeping like an angel with no visible signs of trauma. I tipped her 5 euro and scooted her out the door so I could promptly examine all of his parts.