And while we are on the subject...

Here's what I wish the common etiquette for invites to families with children was:

"We'd love to see you for dinner on Wednesday the 8th and we're giving you as much notice now as possible so that you can line up a sitter" *

or

"We would love for you, Ryan and Lauren to join us..."

otherwise, we are always guessing if she is welcome or not, and have to assume not, and trying to find out by dropping little hints about it, saying "we'll check if our sitter is available then" so that we can see if you then say "oh, of course bring her if you want" or not.

We don't want to be one of those families that just assumes their kid is invited when maybe not.

And by the way, for those not in the know, sitters around here are $15 an hour these days! So if you invite us for something like a wedding, naturally we'll be there, kid or no kid. And probably kid at grandma's anyway, we get a lot of lead time on weddings to set that up. If it's dinner nearby, sure, once in awhile we like to get out and leave Lauren home and grandpa is happy to read her books for a hour or two. But for a trip to the valley with drinks & dinner and travel time, this could easily cost us $60 and up for the sitter alone.