New Nanny: Yanique

So...it turns out we hired Mary Poppins.

It all started when she dropped out of the sky and into a text on my phone.  We had talked many months earlier, and we had liked her then, but apparently she couldn't leave her old employer in the lurch at the time we needed child care.  Now, she was looking for a job and unfortunately I had to tell her we had already just hired a new nanny and we wanted to give her a chance.

More unfortunately, our new nanny, Jenna, turned out the be an amazon-sized, 25-year-old-going-on-tween.  We were imagining all her energy and athleticism coming out in wonderful pictures of Mina learning cartwheels and Rowan bouncing on her shoulders.  We quickly learned that her energy was being spent on body building, and she seemed to be resting her weary self at work. More troubling was that she was completely unreliable - weird nap times for the kids, choking hazards all over the place, messy house (coffee cups everywhere!), unhealthy food, and she was going on unknown activities where we'd not completely believe that she hadn't just gone to meet up with her boyfriend. Terrible.

Two weeks after she started, she got "ill". I received a text at midnight the night before. Poor thing, we understood. Dan and I manage to take of work in shifts, but, surprisingly, all our texts went unanswered on Thursday...then Friday....then Saturday....and then Sunday, as to when she would be returning to work.  By this time, we were beside ourselves and I suddenly remembered Yanique.  Perhaps she was still available?

I called her at 7 am, and she agreed to start then and there, on a trial basis.  She was at our house two hours later, had brought all of her notes from the first time we had met, and had the kids magically fed, outdoors, and in bed at all appropriate times. Wha..? They had known her for...like...4 hours!!!!

We never actually did hear from Jenna - not for a week, which is when she got back from a trip to the west coast.  I had finally sent off a stormy email saying that we really needed our KEYS back, along with several other essentials and at some point they ended up in our mailbox. You see, Yanique checked the mail while we were were away. Ha.

So, I suppose you could count the trials by fire as a stroke of luck, eh?

Doing projects!

Day 2: Folded laundry. In our house.