Nanny-gate

I don't know that it will always be true, but to this point it has been safe to assume that if there's a lull in blog posting it's because something "extra" is going on in the land of Nages. In December it was holidays, birthdays and family visits. We had Grams (who seems to have escaped being photographed), then Toona and Gido (DH's parents). So instead of blogging, we were doing this

and other brief periods of visiting and getting to know each other. After all of that settled, DH and I prepared to get back to the grindstone, and part of that was having our nanny start. So why not much blogging since January? Enter Nanny-gate....

"The most stressful part of my job is child care" said one of my friends and colleagues recently. After the last two weeks, I have to agree with her. DH and I painstakingly considered child care options during our last months of pregnancy. There are two very good hospital-based day cares within 5 miles of our house and they seemed like the logical place to start. Any other year I think LO would have gone to one of them. But this year I just couldn't put him in. In the fall, when we did not know how serious the H1N1 flu would be, I told DH I did not know how I'd forgive myself if LO got the flu and ended up in the hospital or worse all because we put him in day care. DH said that was all he needed to hear. We wouldn't put LO in day care this winter.

So we set about the task of figuring out how to afford and hiring a nanny. Let me tell you that is no small task! Still, we managed to find someone (we'll call her "V") and settle on a contract through the weeks of October and November. Everything was in place for her to start January 4th.

Prior to V starting, we agreed to make sure her duty hours would be over by 10 am on Mondays and Wednesdays so she could schedule classes starting then. She told us she had been able to make her own schedule for school and would work around our needs. Perfect! Then, on Jan 4th, we oriented her and she went to get her class schedule. She called at 11:45 am and said she had a problem. She could not make her own schedule and had to take an 8:30 am class on Mon and Wed. Mind you, Jan 4th was a Monday, so I had about 40 hrs to find a new nanny for Mon and Wed. So we scrambled and called every person we knew and even some that we didn't. Finally we found a 19 yo that one of our neighbors uses for child care. She was not as experienced or as comfortable with LO as we might have liked, but we thought she'd be ok for the brief period of time we needed her. We thought she'd learn quickly and do better over time. So we told her ("T") that we'd need her to start the following week. We worked out other plans until then. Problem solved? You'd think so. Then there was the threat of icy weather that Friday. V e-mail asking what to do if the roads were bad. I e-mailed back that they were fine, not realizing that she was further north than we are. So Friday morning rolls around and it's the first time I've tried to get LO up and fed and ready for V then get myself out the door for a 10-12 hr day of work. I was running behind and a little stressed. Turned out that that didn't matter because V called and said she'd be an hour late and asked if that was ok. Um, no, that's not ok, if it was ok, then I would have told her to be here an hour later to start. Frustration ensued. I told her to get here as quickly and safely as possible. She managed to only be 25 minutes late. That day was a mess at work. It's hard to recover from a late start. We made it though and I raced home to scoop LO up and love on him as much as possible before I had to work the next day. Saturday seemed to go off without a hitch. I thought maybe we had the kinks worked out. Monday afternoon we got a call from one of DH's colleagues whom we had called the previous week looking for our Mon/Wed solution. He left a message saying his former nanny was looking for a job and she's great. We took her name just in case. Not five minutes later I got an e-mail from V quitting. We had about 18 hrs (most of which people usually are sleeping) to find a new, full-time nanny so I could go to work on Tues.

It's safe to say I'm a type-A person. DH had commended me on how well I rolled with the events of the previous week. I tried to do the same this time, but I was definitely on the edge of coming unglued. Thinking that the voice mail from DH's colleague may have been providence, we called "S." She was interested and arranged to meet us the next morning. She was great! I liked her right away and half oriented/half interviewed her. She was still interested after we talked, and even agreed to stay with LO so I could run to work for an hour. She agreed to get flu vaccines and I even called and had one held for her. She would have to be off on Fridays by 3pm for her other job, so I found another nanny who could work Fridays until we got home. We loved her too and our needs fit in with her other job. I had to call T and tell her we couldn't offer her the Mon/Wed hours anymore because we had a new nanny who could work them. It was all happening so fast, but was working out so well. Thank God! DH called to check in and I left him a message saying everything was going to be ok. What a relief...until 12:45 that afternoon when she sent me an e-mail saying after having time to think about it, she really needed something full-time. I couldn't blame her for backing out. She'd barely had time to consider the job while she was here. She offered to help us find someone. We had to call our Friday back-up person and cancel her hours since S wasn't taking the job.

That's when S recommended her friend. "C" was already nannying for several families part-time and was looking to supplement those hours. She had several years of experience including work with newborns and boys. So we called C and she agreed to meet us Wed morning. She had a lot of the same good qualities as S and also seemed to know and verbalize her needs well. She was comfortable with LO and I knew she would care for him well. She agreed to stay Wed so I could go to work for an hour, then came back Thurs to get better oriented. Ironically she needed to be off two Fridays, so we called our back-up person again and she was kind enough to agree to help. So far things are going fairly well with C. She was a little anxious about getting vaccinated, but sounds like she is going to get them today. She and I are still getting used to each other a little, but I think we will. Like a child who's been burned by the fire, I keep waiting for her to quit on us too, but it seems like she's staying.

Believe it or not, that's the short version. There were hours and hours of more phone calls, interviews and reference check. In the process I made some new mommy acquaintances and child care connections. I'm happy to say that I have names and numbers for a few more options if we need them, and even a lead on possible emergency child care if C can't make it one day. Yes, child care has indeed been the most stressful part of my going back to work. Here's hoping it will never be like that again. Here's hoping C will love and lead LO almost as well as we do.