We're interviewing summer babysitters at our house this week, and with an 8- and 11-year-old as the potential charges, we've had lots and lots of applicants. Taking care of tweens is pretty breezy; the daily grind is a lot less so when there are no diapers, naps, bottles, strollers, or car seats to fuss over. Making lunch and supervising the pool are the bare minimum requirements; of course we'd prefer a lot more than that, including enforcing some limitations on screen time that will probably require heavy duty activity-based interventions.

Even though we'd never leave the kids alone every summer weekday, the question has come up recently of when it will be OK to leave them on their own for shorter spans of time. I was under the impression that 12 was the legal cut-off, but then I looked it up. In California at least, there is no specific age requirement for leaving a child alone at home; instead, there are statutes for the prosecution of parents when something bad happens to a kid who's left home alone. Tricky, huh? The state leaves it up to the parents to make a judgment call about the potential that harm might come to the child in the parents' absence, and act accordingly.

These provisions mean that legally I could make a grocery run without dragging the kids along, and my husband and I could drop in on a friend's party without getting a last-minute babysitter. Cool! But will we?

Just last week, the kids and the dog were playing with a Monster Balloon in the living room (nothing I had previously forbidden), and an hourglass on the mantle took a header for the floor. Tiny shards of glass mixed with fine black sand went everywhere. The kids kind of panicked, and had even taken a step or two with bare feet before I made it into the room and told them to freeze, got the dog out of there, and started to clean up (not to mention soothe a scared and upset boy).

Not the best bit of marketing for the Monster Balloons, is it? Sigh. Would it help if I told you that the balloon survived the incident and is still going strong two weeks later?

Well, if that incident did anything, it reinforced that at this point leaving them alone for more than a few minutes would drive me crazy with "what ifs." Some parents would call that "neurotic," and I wouldn't necessarily argue with them. I'm also certain that it won't be much longer until I'll feel that they could handle that kind of accident on their own. I just don't mind waiting a little while for this next step in parenting.