Babysitter mishaps

My family owns a company and has a foundation here in town, and both have meetings periodically throughout the year.  Sacha and I have committed to getting sitters on the days of meetings so that I can attend, and we normally use an agency that does a thorough screening process and hires great people.  You can request the sitter you want, so we try to find someone we like and then stick with them, which has worked really well, up until today.

I had a meeting to attend today, so I lined up our current favorite sitter through the agency.  The kids have spent time with her a number of times in the past and they always report having had fun with her.  They sing songs, color, read books, and generally have a good time.  Well, today that all went out the window.  To give credit where it's due, I should say that both Tali and Rosa were model citizens throughout the day.  Mateo, however, caused a huge amount of turmoil and pretty much ruined the sitter's day all in seven short hours. 

I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but we all got our flu shots yesterday.  I did think that all the kids felt a little warm this morning, but my hands are usually cold, so it's kind of hard to tell.  In any case, they were acting fine when I left, so I figured all was well.  Then, as I was sitting peacefully at the meeting and enjoying the relative peace and quiet, I got a call from home.  I went out of the room to answer it and it was the babysitter, saying that Mateo had just thrown a big tantrum and wasn't listening and had been throwing stuff and such.  She wanted me to talk to him to see if I could calm him down, which I tried, but it had no effect. 

We decided that she'd put on a video and see if that would help him reset a little bit.  Before I could even make it back to the meeting, she called again, and I could hear wailing in the background.  This time, he had freaked out and started hitting her when she gave him a timeout for misbehaving, and then proceeded to throw another tantrum.  This, from a kid who has always behaved well for sitters in the past, was surprising and rather dismaying. 

I almost just went home right then, but she called me back to say that he had calmed down and was watching the video calmly.  We decided he needed a nap, since he was acting so totally out of character and like he was exhausted, and he did eventually take one, but not before flipping out again and going kicking and hitting and shrieking into yet another timeout.  Good times. 

Eventually, the meeting ended and I rushed home to rescue the poor babysitter.  Of course, Mateo acted totally fine from the moment I walked in the door and said he didn't know why he had been so grumpy before.  I wasn't sure what to do at that point, but luckily Sacha got home and took over.  She sent me out to get a treat with Tali and Rosa, as a little reward for Tali behaving so well all day. 

Meanwhile, my teacher spouse took Mateo and had him clean up the whole house with her as a way of making up for how he had acted earlier.  By the time we got back, he was out of the proverbial doghouse and feeling quite proud of himself for how helpful he had been to Mommy. 

We just hope that today was an aberration and that he was feeling crummy from the flu shot or something like that.  I have to admit, I am already dreading the next time I leave them with a sitter, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Let's hope today's babysitter bounces back and wants to come back again!