Dress to impress

This morning as I was getting ready I was stressing out because I wanted my hair to look right and my clothes to look nice. Today was the first day I was taking J to his toddler adult class at school. Now some of you may laugh at me for this but I was stressing out not because I wanted to look good to look good, but because every time I take J out I represent him and his family. J goes to a very nice school where my gently used SUV is the clunker of the parking lot, making sure to represent the family properly was stressing me out! So I got my hair to look just right my sweater to fit just so and ran out the house. As soon as we get to school my sweater refuses to stay put and keeps rising up, my hair goes limp, and I look just like all the other ladies there. So I always keep in mind that when I go out with J that I need to dress to impress because as a nanny I represent the family. However it’s nice to be reminded that moms and nanny everywhere are the same. We take care of the most precious possessions and more often than not our put together looks are taken apart before we even manage to leave the house with the kiddos.

The non eater

We all know those kids, the ones that don’t eat. Well J is one of those kids! I know that he will eat when he’s hungry and all that but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Sitting down for breakfast is usually fine but lunch, forget it! Hell play with his fork, drop food on the ground, bang on the table and chairs, anything that’s not eating. I’ve had kids who’ve done this before and it drove me crazy then and still does now. I’m trying different techniques to see what, if anything, will work. I’ve tried to be stern, I’ve fed into his requests, and now I’m ignoring the tantrum until some food makes it to his belly (which is what I’m currently doing). I’ve even stopped letting him snack between breakfast and lunch, moved back lunch time by an hour, nothing seems to work so far. I know that at some point this stubborn little guy will eat but until then Ill sit here silently pulling my hair out an hope for the best!

Just The Nanny

Every now and then I get a bit down on myself because I am just the nanny. All my friends and relatives have “real” jobs and I am just the nanny. Then I sit down, or rather chase down a two year old and smile. I love my job, how many of my friends with “real” jobs can say that? I’ve asked and believe me it’s not many. How many can say going to work brightens their day? So far that’s just me (: I absolutely love the smiles and giggles and adventures the kids and I have! How many people are blesses enough to spend there days at the parks, zoo, and museums and get to truly enjoy life all the while enriching another’s life as well?! So while, at least for now, I am just the nanny I love every part of it. Maybe someday I will have a “real” job but right now and for as long as I can foresee I will enjoy being just the nanny. My heart is with the children and I can’t see that changing anytime soon!

Omg the horse is going to eat me!

So today I took J on an adventure at a local spot called Hale Farm and Village. It’s a super neat little historical place. They have an event called “Fun on the farm” once a Friday a month. This month happened to be civil war reenactment time. Our little program was focused on the horses from the cavalry. Here is what we learned: J is absolutely TERRIFIED of horses! When we first walked up to them he was very excited but then when we walked up to pet them his face changed from excited little boy to pure terror. The poor little guy I can only imagine what he thought those horses were going to do to him. We tried to move at his pace but he just wasn’t having it, now the trailers the horses came in he loved but the horses not so much!

Zzzzz

Forgive me for my lack of posts this week! Nanny time has gotten the best of me lots of extra early mornings and extra late evenings here this week which means one very, very, tired nanny dragging butt as the week slowly crawls to an end.
Along with extra long nanny time we’ve got a little guy whose fully embracing his entrance to the terrible twos! He’s mastering the art of face plant temper tantrums, throwing food, and my favorite; spitting. He is spitting on everything! Which he has learned drives me crazy so, of course, it must be done more and more. *sigh* I have officially been accepted by J into his world and he (who is currently following me around with a toy elephant making very unelephant-ish sounds) is making sure I’m fully aware of it!

Talk talk talking

I currently work for a family with one little guy who is turning two at the end of this month. I arrived today and went about my daily routine getting J dressed and starting on our daily chores. We welcomed the cleaning lady M, she comes every other week, and continued with whatever activity we were doing. Chores, bake cookies, playtime, craft, lunchtime, and then nap time. Nap time means downtime for me (yay!) and every other Friday it means time to catch up with M and see whats going on in her life and indulge in some grown-up talk (super yay!!) During our talk I asked M if she had heard J telling me no. “No” is J’s newest word, he may be almost two however his speech is a bit behind with his only constant word being yeah. Today he really didn’t want pees with lunch or for me to check his diaper, “no!”. M said she’d heard him and I told her how excited I was that he had a new word. She laughed at me and told me the way I talk with him he’d should be talking in no time. I probably gave her a weird look because she clarified and told me that I talk to J like he was a normal grown person. She told me she hears me talking to him and I just talk to him like he was just another equal. I do talk to J like he’s a normal human because he is. He’s just a mini human! I have full conversations, more so with myself then with J I’m sure. I tell him what were going to do and what I’m doing as I’m doing it and I ask him to do things like I would ask an older child to. Now I don’t expect him to be able to do everything I ask of him, but I love seeing him try. I’ve only been with this family for about two months now and J has progressed by leaps and bounds in these last two months and I am extremely proud of him. Just yesterday he was following me around and mimicking (trying to at least) everything I was saying and all the weird sounds (I’m sorry J’s mom and dad!) I was making at him haha! Now I have to say J is an easy kid and with just a little bit of effort he learns so much! I have enlisted help from professionals on ways to get J to start talking and we work everyday with those tips and techniques. At snack J’s favorite thing to do is say d-d-d-dad, m-m-m-mom over and over. We work with the sounds and if he wants something I have him say the sound of the first letter of what he wants like milk, mmmm-milk. He does it most of the time and of course there’s times he just breaks down because he’s thirsty and wants his damn milk, but he’s (almost) two he’s allowed to have those days! He knows that diaper starts with d and that d-d-d-diaper goes on his bottom b-b-b-bottom. He knows tractor starts with t and that it’s t-t-t-tractor. He can say Z and E and is currently figuring out the sounds that make up his own name. We work out different sounds together all the time and in no time I’m going to miss this peaceful quiet but it will be worth it. So I talk pretty much non-stop when J and I are together and people may give me some weird looks when we’re walking and I’m talking to J and we see something interesting like a dog and I tell him hey look J it’s a dog! d-d-dog! But those people don’t know how exciting it is when J says d-d-d-{insert d word} and how proud of him I get when he puts together a new word and the big triumphant smile that follows. I am a nanny and I talk for myself, I talk for the little ones, and I talk to keep sane. I can’t wait for Monday to come and see what new surprises J has for me then!

You’re on nanny-time

Being a nanny means that you are responsible for someone’s little, and not so little, bundles of joy. With this responsibility it means that you have to be at work before the normal work day begins because the parents depend on you to be there to be briefed on the little and big things that have occurred between the time you left the night before and the time you arrived in the morning, to feed their littles breakfast and get them ready for the day, and do this all in a way that does not disrupt the parents getting ready and out the door so they can make it to their jobs on time. This means that my day starts early. Then my day continues from there with feedings, diaper changes, and altered nap schedules, driving to story time and other activities keeping constantly moving and on schedule. I do have a set time for my work day, however I am on nanny-time. I arrive at work in a time frame allowing myself extra time each morning for an extra chatty mom and/or dad to fill me in on every last detail and question me on every move we plan to make that day, I try to keep the morning extra time down to 10 or so minutes. Then when I am supposed to end my work day well that’s where nanny-time really kicks in. You see, I only get to go home when the parents arrive home, it’s not like your average 9-5 job where when 5 o’clock hits you can leave or maybe sneak out a few minutes early. When my cutoff time comes, and most time goes, I have to wait for the parents to get home and take over. You would think it would be easy and seamless transition since it happens everyday and there’s only two or three hours maximum that they get to spend with their littles but it never is. If your lucky like me and are encouraged to send pictures of every second of every day and keep the parents updated with everything you do and keep a journal or what they ate and their bowel movements, then you would think the transition would be even easier. It’s not. The parent wants you to tell them about every moment of the day in excruciating detail and I smile and oblige them because that’s my job, however recounting the day to them and answering questions as they leisurely sit back and start to unwind and relax from their long day at work usually takes anywhere from 20-30 minutes. Oh and did I mention that the parents are usually late? Now I love my job, I absolutely love what I do. I am just forever on Nanny-Time. My time belongs to the family I work for. It’s not unusual for the families to ask me to come in “early” or leave “late”, that’s just nanny-time for you, so you just smile tell them no problem. Everyday is a new adventure and for me nanny-time is just a part of that adventure.

Why hello there!

Well hello there! My name is Jordan and I am a nanny. This blog is to let you in on my life as a nanny. There is seldom a dull moment in what I do, other than nap time, and I can’t wait to share it all with you!