Zeena bundles up Leah on a cold November Day
Zeena's style was very natural in terms of her outlook on life and how she approached the girls. I made it clear to her that taking care of them took preceedence over any other thing in the house, like laundry, etc. She took that very literally. Those girls played HARD. They'd go outside for hours, coming in and do crafts, take walks, read books and were always asleep when I'd get home. The down side-- well, I'd be scraping play-do off the floors and picking things up and doing tons of laundry beginning the minute she left. But the girls were happy!
Then the nanny curse continued-- Zeena gave us the bad news that she had been accepted to a teaching program that would pay for her grad school. She had to go out of town immediately for a seminar and didn't know how this would affect her schedule. Of course, my mother came in to the rescue while she went out of town.
But here's where it gets weird-- she never came back when she said she would. And we were quite scared! And pissed! I mean, why didn't she return any calls? I suddenly realized I had no emergency contact information for her. I just kept leaving voicemals and emails over the course of 3 days thinking "either something horrible has happend, or she is SO FIRED!"
Then one morning I got an email that said "I'm alive!"-- and explained she had been in a car accident in Savannah (jot injured thankfully) and they towed away her purse and cell phone. Doesn't explain why she couldn't find a pay phone and dial 411 in my opinion. The final zinger was that her fellowship started immediately and she was sorry she couldn't give two weeks notice.
AAAHHH! She agreed via email to call me that night to talk more about the situtation. Guess what, she never called.
By this point the girls were able to wonder where Zeena had gone! I told them, sadly that she went back to school. We've never heard from her since.
The story comes full circle as Barbara stepped up to the plate after Zeena's sudden departure, no questions asked. That was February of this year. At this point the girls were a bit older and not so much babies any more but walking talking toddlers with lots of imagination and energy. I knew I would miss the all -un attitude of Zeena, but knew that this was just a part-time situation and they were still getting great care, even if Barbara did do things like buy them new pacifiers and occasionally spoon fed them breakfast (!).
Since February we've been plugging along doing well but Barbara suddendly started feeling bad health-wise. It's hard to explain what's wrong as she also has a hard time telling me what the problem was. It's still being looked in to with doctors visits, etc. Short story is that she was out all last week and then tried to come in Tuesday but it was just too much. I feel terrible for her because she's having a lot of discomfort and might not know her own limits.
Scott stayed home with them Wednesday, and my mom has them today.
But then what? Do I assume she's out for a long period of time? It gets more complicated as Lucy and I had agreed to nanny share this summer 2 days a week. I feel like I've let her down as well! Can I continue to call on mom when she's made it understandably clear one day is about all she can reasonably do?
It gets even more complicated since the girls start pre-school (HURRAH) August 29 for two days a week. That means I only need nanny help one day. Will it be Barbara? Or do we start the hunt again?
Sometimes it makes me wish we'd gone the way of daycare-- but not really.
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