Dare I say the best job in the world?
Sometimes I think I want to be a nanny for the rest of my life. Seriously, I have considered it as a long-term career path and I won’t be mad if that’s where I end up. This past summer I was a full-time nanny for three girls, twins who were four-years-old and a six-year-old. The three sisters kept my hands full at all times, made me belly laugh constantly and also made me jump in the pool fully-clothed. Here are some of my favorite stories from being a nanny.
One of my first days with this family we had an art session. Markers, streamers, crayons, scissors and the most dreaded medium of parents world-wide, paint. I swear to you, I left the room for two-minutes, but by the time I returned, all three girls had painted their feet black and ran around the basement. Tiny footprints covered the floors of this beautiful home that I was now responsible for keeping intact. I went mute, staring at them frozen for about 30 seconds before going into straight panic and pushing them into the bathtub to wash off. As one of the twins was trying to get out of the tub, she slipped, gliding her whole arm right into the open toilet bowl. Her big eyes looked up at me with her arm covered in toilet water. While I was incredibly panicked just moments before, we broke out into laughter so big I think tears streamed down my face.
Like previously mentioned, I did jump into the bustling country club’s pool fully-clothed. After a rambunctious morning, the girls were on edge and so was I. I brought us to the pool thinking this would settle everyone down, but that was incredibly wishful thinking. Before I can even put the towels out, I hear the high-pitched screams of my kids coming from behind me. I whip around to see the three of them wrestling each other like drunk grown men.
While on a normal day I may have had greater patience, this particular Monday had already tested me and I had very little patience left. So, rather than acting like a normal person and asking them to stop, I leapt into the pool, fully-clothed, and got them out of there myself. I cannot say it was my most gracious moment, but we were all laughing so hard the fighting ceased.
One of my best and favorite memories with my girls happened with the three of them squished into the passenger seat of my car. We drove around a lot, and slowly developed a list of songs they liked to listen to. They never knew the real name of the song, so they asked in their own language, like Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” was “girl in the black dress” (I can’t explain, just go with it). One day we got home in the middle of Britney singing to us, and one of my kids asked if we could stay in the car to finish it. This ended up with all three of them squished into the passenger seat belting “my loneliness is killing me!” with the most dramatic hand motions and hair flips. The oldest found a tube of lipstick in the cup holder and had me put some on her. Of course the younger ones wanted some too, so it was the three of them jamming out in the front seat with Fenty lip gloss on, me smiling ear-to-ear next to them.
Nannying will always hold a special place in my heart. There isn’t anything quite like it. While there are moments of frustration and days where almost nothing goes according to plan, there was never a day that I wasn’t laughing and feeling so lucky to be there.