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8 Nanny Applicants That Were Just… No

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A new baby brings coos and cuddles. But before you know it… you’ve got to go back to work. And that means you’ve got to find childcare.

My plan is to keep Lorik out of daycare (and the cooties that come with it) for as long as possible, so I got a Care.com membership and started searching for a short-term nanny.

Perfect nanny, where are you?
Perfect nanny, where are you?

So many nannies of all shapes and sizes! The emails started coming—about a hundred within a week. Here are some of my favorite applicants, and by favorite I mean the ones who made me want to crawl into a hole and question humanity.

  1. The nanny who doesn’t like crybabies. “If your baby cries for more than 5 minutes I will call you.”
  2. The nanny who wants to shake your baby. “When a baby can’t stop crying I just shake them.” Should I email her a public service announcement?
  3. The nanny who didn’t read the job description. “I will teach your kid to ride a bike, help with their homework and coloring, and take them on playdates.” Good because I was really sick of Lorik being the last baby to learn to ride his bike.
  4. The nanny who laughs when you tell them what you can afford to pay. That happened.
  5. The nanny who’s oh-so-sexy. I mean, I like sequins and short skirts just as much as the next girl, but maybe don’t use that photo for your nanny profile. We all know about Jude Law, Ethan Hawke and the Governator.
  6. The nanny who had her friend call me because she doesn’t like to talk on the phone. Yeah ok, who does anymore? But what if there’s an emergency?!?
  7. The nanny who likes convenience. “This really works well for my schedule,” is not the most convincing reason I’d leave you with my precious baby. Especially when it’s the only reason you can come up with.
  8. The nanny who pretended to be someone else. When I called to check her reference, the woman on the other end of the line sounded strikingly similar to the nanny applicant. Because they were the SAME PERSON.

I haven’t been on the dating scene in a while, but if Match.com is anything like Care.com, the world is in trouble. Yet somehow… I found a unicorn. Someone who loves Lorik almost as much as I do, no matter how many times he screams in her face, throws up on her and poops in her hand.

What, like you've never done it?
What, like you’ve never done it?

And I’m not even going to mention the fact that she buys me coffee, takes beautiful photos of my baby and color codes my bookcases. Oh and she’s always early. And she’s just the most loving and kind young woman I’ve ever met. I kind of want to adopt her, but I don’t think you can do that with 23 year olds.

I’m not back at work full-time yet—just going in for meetings and working part time from home. And when my unicorn goes to nursing school in January, it’s back to the drawing board. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there won’t be too many more nanny don’ts to add to the list, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

My Life is a Math Problem, Help Me Solve It

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When two parents work in different parts of town and have two kids who go to different schools in different parts of town, it’s time to take out the calculator.

Warning: this is not interesting. If you want to be entertained, stop reading now. If you want to fix my problem, read faster please.

School starts in a month, and I was so excited when I learned that Zana got a space in a pre-school. On the Hill, applying for childcare is harder than trying to get into the Ivy League. She’s been on multiple waiting lists since March, and is still nowhere near the top of any of them. Finally, two weeks ago, a school in Virginia (between my home and office) called with a space for her. I was so relieved that it didn’t dawn on me, until today, that we had created a new problem: pick up times and aftercare.

Mo’ Cuteness, Mo’ Problems

Here are the important pieces of the puzzle:

  • Zana’s school gets out at 3pm.
  • Lira’s school (about 20-30 minutes away at that time of day) gets out at 3:15 pm.
  • Aftercare costs about $300/month per child. (My calculator tells me that’s $600).

Dave and I both currently have arrangements with our jobs allowing us to leave early a couple of days a week to pick up the girls. We make up the time by working in the evenings, which has become pretty stressful because of our lack of chill time. Even so, we’ve been making it work Tim Gunn-style. But now that the girls are across town from each other, everything changes.

Lightbulb! I have the solution: we hire a college student to pick up the girls (Zana 15 minutes early each day), and take them home until we get there (around 4:30).

More important pieces of the puzzle:

  • We’d need this college student to work 10 hours a week.
  • We’d probably have to pay about $15 an hour.

My calculator tells me we’re talking about $600-$700 a month… not any cheaper than the first option, but at least they’d be together and at home.

Dave (always the party pooper) nixed that idea, reminding me that we don’t have an extra $600-$700 a month lying around… especially if I want that new car I’ve been talking about. Why does he always have to be so practical and logical, and all that other annoying stuff?

I asked him for a better idea, and here’s what he came up with:

  • He will start waking up 2 hours earlier in order to be at work by 7:30 each morning (Note: he hasn’t woken up before 7am since his days in the Marine Corps). Then he could leave work at 2:45pm to pick up Lira.
  • Meanwhile, I would take my lunch break every day at 2:30, go pick up Zana, and then wait with her while Dave drives across town with Lira to get Zana… at which time I’m supposed to go back to work and finish the day.

This is a bad idea because:

  1. Dave came up with it
  2. Taking Lira on a round-trip journey in traffic, across the 14th Street bridge, every day  to pick up her sister will make her hate us all.
  3. If I leave work and drive halfway home, I’m not going back.
  4. Even if Dave does manage to wake up before noon, I’d be solo with the girls in the morning trying to get them to school on time (which terrifies me).

So, my wonderful MomInDCity readers, what should I do??? I’m accepting pity, suggestions, and donations.

Don’t Hate What You Can’t Imitate

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Picture this: It takes me an hour to drive 7 miles home in bumper-to-bumper traffic. When I rush in the door, I manage to fix one girls hair while wrestling the other, WWE style, to put some clothes on. It’s 6:15 and we’re hoping to make it to the Spring concert at Lira’s school, which starts in 15 minutes.

In a moment of clarity, I stop cursing under my breath and notice how stinking adorable Zana is, sitting in her stroller with her tutu, sunglasses and cheesy grin; so I snapped this pic and put it on Instagram so the rest of the world could tell me how much they “like” it:

The Spring Concert was very cute, pretty much what you’d expect from these things. When it was over we all went out to the playground so the kids could run wear themselves out before bed.

Then it was bath time, story time, laundry time and then… work time. The fact that it’s 10 o’clock, doesn’t mean my work day is over. Thanks to a flexible schedule, I get to leave early 3 days a week and spend afternoons with the girls; but because of that, I work late in to the evenings, often times long after bedtime.

As I waited for my laptop to turn on, I checked Instagram, I noticed that among the “likes,” there was also a comment:

“Your work hours are bar none the best of anyone I will ever meet.”

It was from a former co-worker. A guy I was never particularly close with.

Because I am hot-headed, I showed this to Dave to make sure I’m not reading it wrong. “Sounds like a backhanded compliment to me. Why would he say that?”

That’s what I want to know! I went to reply to his comment but couldn’t think of anything appropriate. But here are a few of my ideas:

  • Some people are in the office half a day, others are in the office 15 hours a day and still can’t hack it.
  • I didn’t think you noticed when I worked, based on the fact that you were on Facebook 10 hours a day.
  • Why don’t you stop worrying about what I’m doing and go find a job

But I’m far too polite (ha). Dave thought I should remind him that I work from home at night, but I was annoyed at the thought of justifying myself to him. I decided to do nothing (well nothing but block him from my Instagram feed and unfriend him on Facebook). But I still felt bothered.

I work when the kids go to bed; I work on weekends; I’ve respond to texts from my boss Friday nat midnight and I’ve had Skype meetings well after dark. Even when I was on maternity leave, I checked my work email religiously so that I could stay up to speed. It’s on my mind constantly because my coworkers have put their trust in me, and I never want to disappoint them.

So yes, a lot of times my life looks like this…

Or this…

But I don’t take that for granted. So there! Get a job. Stop worrying about me… you lazy bum.