Nanny Versus Mommy

My husband is burned out. He agreed to become a stay at home parent when Alex (our nine year old) was 3 months old. I think we both assumed at the time that we would eventually hire a nanny who was as good as Mary (our first nanny) and that he would either go back to work or just enjoy his life. That was nine years ago. When we moved to Austin, we decided that it was time to find a nanny before my husband flipped out and set me on fire. Our first nanny was Patty. Patty was a little younger than our ideal nanny (24 instead of 40) but instantly connected with the twins, was deemed suitable by both Zoë and Justin and was more or less tolerated by Alex. The problem was that Patty wasn’t very smart, which left us constantly concerned that an exercise of poor judgment could put the twins at risk. Soon after we hired Patty, I became the subject of a giant wave of momgossip at school. Evidently Patty was always on her cell phone when she picked up the big kids and was causing the moms to worry that she was going to plow someone over with our SUV. A month after we hired Patty, I went to school to read in the classroom and noted that signs had been erected everywhere “Stay Off of Cell Phones During Pickup (Patty)”. Patty’s name didn’t actually appear on the signs, but we all knew who the signs were speaking to. And then there was the makeup. Let me start by saying that I don’t wear makeup. Every now and then, I will put on mascara or give eye shadow a try, but since I didn’t start wearing makeup at a young age, I never mastered the skill of makeup application and generally do a bad job of applying makeup now. Plus, I am busy and hate to spend two minutes wiping makeup off of my face at night. But Patty loved makeup, applied it beautifully and carried a makeup aisle in her purse. Every now and then, she would let the twins play with her makeup. Soon play turned into obsession as the twins began asking for makeup at the store, taking makeup out of the bathroom and applying it in my closet. They were two coats of mascara from being mini versions of Tammy Faye Baker. I hated it, but I also hate spending the time that I have with the girls fighting with them so I tried a number of alternative approaches from makeup is kind of uncomfortable, don’t you think to let’s save makeup just for special occasions to I will give you each fifty dollars if you stop wearing purple lipstick to the super market. Nothing worked. So I fired Patty and hired Virginia, a no makeup wearing, skateboard riding, sarcastic smart film student. This weekend we are going shopping for toddler skateboards and the associated braces, pads and mouth guards. I couldn’t be happier.