validation

Sometimes this nannying gig is kind of thankless. There are times I don't love it. Sasha in particular can be frustrating and I spend a lot of time feeling like the Bad Guy destroying all Sasha's hopes and dreams (which mostly revolve around sugary foods and television). The last two hours of the day I clock-check a lot, repeating mental mantras of the "please come take your children" variety. There was a moment a few weeks ago that looked like this: an hour before Sasha and Ezra's parents were due home, Ezra was screaming and thrashing about while I pinned him to the changing table to wrestle a soiled diaper off his poor chapped bottom, and Sasha came running into the room, slipped and fell, and started bawling too. Both kids, totally losing it at the same time. And while I snapped onsie snaps and tried to say comforting things to Sasha, I was thinking: why am I doing this again?

I had almost two weeks off from nannying for the winter holidays to do some traveling and to visit family. My first day back, Sasha's mom told me that Sasha had asked nearly every day when I was coming over. When I picked Sasha up from school, she told me that a couple of days during winter break she'd had a different babysitter because I was out of town, but, Sasha was quick to add, "I didn't like her as much as you."

And my heart grew one and a half sizes.*

Although apparently the reason this other babysitter was inferior was because "she didn't know us as well, because, you know, she was new."

So I'm the choice nanny because I've been around longer? Whatever, I'll take validation where I can get it.

Hugs,
-MP

*let's not get too hyperbolic here