We went to see Wanted in the theatre last night. Years of watching nothing but Treehouse and reality television left me pretty shocked at all the graphic violence. About five minutes into the movie, there’s a scene in which multiple people are killed with shots to the head, and I leaned over to Sir Monkeypants and said, “Man, this is really different than Toopy and Binoo.”

We were able to see the movie in theatres because we actually hired a babysitter. This is so embarrassing and sad, but this is the first time we’ve ever hired a babysitter since the Captain was born. In the past five years, Sir Monkeypants and I have been out together no more than a handful of times; we’ve only ever gone out together when my sister FameThrowa was available for sitting. Oh, and twice we’ve done an anniversary babysitting swap with the Carl Sagans, whose anniversary is the day after ours.

In fact, let us tally:

Number of nights I have slept away from the kids (with Sir Monkeypants back at home): 1

Number of nights Captain Jelly Belly has slept away from me (camping with Sir Monkeypants): 2

Number of nights Gal Smiley has slept away from me (camping, as well): 1

Number of nights Little Miss Sunshine has slept away from me: 0

Number of times Sir Monkeypants and I have been out together, with FameThrowa babysitting: 5

Number of times Sir Monkeypants and I have been out together, with Mr. Carl Sagan babysitting: 2

Number of times my friend Fiona and I tried to do a babysitting swap and she came and sat for us while we went to a wedding reception, but we never got around to sitting for her, which I’ve always felt bad about: 1

To sum up: I can count on two hands the number of times we have been out of the house together since the Captain was born. I can count on one hand then number of times I’ve slept apart from my babies. No wonder I wasn’t invited to be one of the parents on Baby Borrowers.

So needless to say, hiring a babysitter for a night on the town was a pretty big deal for us.

Our new babysitter is Miss Hilarious, daughter of MyFriendJen. Our kids know her and love her; she has little brothers and sisters that she takes care of all the time; and her own parents are just five doors down should anything go wrong. Plus, she has at least four more good years of babysitting ahead of her, and she has a circle of three other very nice girlfriends, all of whom babysit, so if you can’t get one particular sitter for one particular night, you can probably get one of the others. She’s pretty much the ideal in terms of babysitting.

Still, it took us a looooong while to work up to this. We’ve talked about hiring her for at least six months now, but every time it came right down to it, I just couldn’t go through with it. It’s been easy to use Little Miss Sunshine as an excuse — what if she needed nursing in the night? — but really, she hardly ever nurses at night anymore, and the time had come for us to ease back into being actual adults for a while.

Last night before Miss Hilarious arrived I was kind of freaking out. Not about leaving the kids (too much, anyway)…but about other stuff. Like, what kind of snacks should we leave out? Would we have enough quality TV shows on the PVR and movies available on DVD? What phone numbers should we be leaving? Should I type up an information sheet on each kid? Should I leave detailed instructions on paper?

I also felt a strong need to clean the whole house, which seems really silly. It’s not as if Miss Hilarious was going to go over our house with a white glove and then refuse to come back if she found dust. Still, it felt more to me like we were having guests over, than hiring a babysitter. Weird.

Oh and one more thing? Miss Hilarious asked us for a fire plan. We do not have one. We suck, just a little bit there.

Anyway, everything worked out in the end. Once I settled down and Miss Hilarious took over, everything felt great. We’d already put Little Miss Sunshine to bed and the older two kids were already in their jammies, so Miss Hilarious just had to get them into bed — we hear that they went easily with no trouble. They were more than happy to see us leave — they love playing with Miss Hilarious and there were no tears or tension — so we skipped happily out the door and didn’t look back.

Although I sat with my cell phone in my hand throughout the whole movie, I was able to actually enjoy the movie and relax. I was surprised and comforted by the fact that I totally trust Miss Hilarious with our kids. I only hope the quality of the snacks was good enough that she’ll want to come back again.

Many, many more times. Oh, the freedom!