Nightmare on Nanny Street

Things had been going well, as well as could possibly be expected, ever since my husband moved down to N.C. a few months ago. My dramatic post about becoming a single parent seemed almost silly in retrospect, since here I was, having a ton of help and support all the time, between my parents, my in-laws, my husband on almost every weekend (yes, driving the 6-8 hours each way), and our live-in nanny. Yes, I pulled more double bedtime duty than I had been accustomed to M-F, but it was hardly the hardship I imagined.

Tempeh, who has been through multiple deployments, and who is quite possibly The most supportive friend in the history of supportive friends and who has made offers weekly to help in some tangible way, joked a couple of months ago that I was overdue for a major appliance failing, a fate that befalls almost every newly-alone spouse of a deployed servicemember.

My appliances, thankfully, are all in good working order (I am furiously knocking on wood right now), but my once-rock-solid nanny situation disintegrated before my eyes.

I will save you all the gory details, but even before the sordid events that unfolded over the course of a couple of months, we had certain reservations about her as a childcare provider. Namely, that while she was perfect for an infant: loving, warm, patient, calm, she was highly ineffective with a toddler and a kindergartener:  entirely passive, indulgent, and without a limit-setting bone in her body. Yet, we were willing to ride it out until the new baby came in a few months and her primary focus would be, again, a newborn. The older two kids would be at school all day.

But, then, the sordid events happened, involving a quite-possibly mentally unstable boyfriend to nanny who would not stay away from our house or our children despite our many requests, and to top it all off, reports from the school that she and said boyfriend picked up our  two-year-old son from half-day pre-school and put him in boyfriend's car, without a car seat and sitting on her lap in the front passenger seat.

Stress? Yes, hello, it's me again. This all went down on my birthday, of all days, and right before a month for me that included 3 work conferences, including 5 presentations and being attending on wards.

We fired her immediately. My parents moved in temporarily. It was all very sad since she had been with us for over 2 years and was very much a part of our family. She had taken care of my son since he was 9 months old and he was/is very attached to her. When she moved out, she cried and hugged me for at least 10 minutes straight, telling me how very sorry she was and how I was like a daughter to her.

This has all highlighted for me how tenuous having a nanny can be. Great one minute. Disastrous the next. I can't tell you how many times my husband and I have told each other how lucky we were to have had our nanny over the past 2 years. Up until recently, it was truly great and made our lives many times over easier. And now, we're/I'm starting all over again. No one is going to be perfect, I know. But, it's scary how far from perfect they can be.