Babysitter

My work holiday party is this weekend.  I plan to attend.  My +1 is a colleague and dear friend.  I'm very excited about spending time with my colleagues outside of our work environment and even more excited about having some girl time with my +1.  However, I'm a little sad that my +1 isn't my husband.  Of course, he was my first choice.  He agreed to go and we made our usual "we need a babysitter" phone call to Nana.  Turns out, though, that Nana has her own social life and isn't available that night.  This creates a problem.  Nana is the only person that has ever watched our kids while we went out on a date.  Having her live so close, and so eager to spend time with her grand kids, has been a blessing - she's reliable; she knows the schedule we like to follow; best of all, she's free!  But, she's busy with her own plans this weekend.  As a teacher, I know of several high school aged students that would be great babysitters.  We've even called on a few to watch the kids for an hour or so when we had to work late.  The issue isn't the babysitter.  The issue is the little boy that we're leaving with the babysitter!  Levi is fascinated with electrical outlets, the doorbell, and switches right now.  He'll pull a stool over to the kitchen counter so he can plug in the coffee maker.  He'll unplug the night light in his bedroom and plug it into one of the outlets in the living room.  He'll wait next to the outlet while I'm vacuuming just so he can be the one to unplug it as soon as I turn it off.  The sound of the doorbell sends the dog into a barking frenzy, which Levi finds hilarious.  He'll  open the front door and go outside so he can stand on the porch and ring the doorbell just to get the dog going (poor Macy).  He did this today when we got home from school, never mind that our high temperature was 28 degrees today!  He'll walk through the house and turn on every light before going back through the house and turning them all off.   We're yet to find a form of discipline that works in keeping him from doing these things.  We're looking into behavior modifications that might help redirect him when Levi seeks out these activities.  In the meantime, Brad and I deal with all of this the best that we can.  The problem is, we don't feel comfortable leaving him with a sitter knowing that he does all of these things.  We're not necessarily concerned about safety, although that is a concern.  We're worried about some poor individual going insane with worry as they try to keep up with him and all of his busy-ness.  I'm starting to get past this and am ready to take a test drive to see what happens.  Brad, on the other hand, has no interest in putting anyone through this test.  This brings us back to the holiday party.  Brad won't go because he won't leave a babysitter with Levi.  This is yet another aspect of autism that we weren't prepared for.  How do we have time for "us" when we don't feel comfortable leaving Levi with a babysitter?  Today is one of those days when I hate autism!