The Nanny

I realized that I did something very unfair. I talked about our childcare crisis, but then never did a follow up.

I am happy to let you know that we have a nanny!

I was so worried about how many people to interview. After your great advice, I decided that I would interview practically anyone who applied. As it happened, after eliminating people who had schedule conflicts, or who never sent me resumes or references, we ended up doing 5 interviews.

And I have to tell you, I'm very glad that we did. As it turns out, two of the applicants had scheduling conflicts they didn't let me know about. In the ad I placed, I was very clear about the hours we needed: Monday through Friday, after school to 5:30 pm. The ad was in a university job site, so I knew that all the applicants would be college students, and that they would have classes. But I imagined that a person would only apply for a job if they could work the hours indicated. One girl stated that she had classes on two of the days, so had I considered actually hiring two different nannies. Another girl said that she has a class that would run late on one day, but not to worry, she would get one of her sorority sisters to be there with our children.

What....?! Who thinks that is would ever be okay?

One applicant's personality just didn't mesh well with our family.

So that left us two real applicants.

Although, to be honest, I knew that we had found our perfect nanny on interview three. She was bubbly, enthusiastic, a little bit of nerd (which is perfect for our science majoring family), had fabulous references. I wanted to hire her on the spot. But I didn't. We still had two interviews to do, and I didn't think it was fair to continue to interview people when we had already filled the job. She then mentioned at the end of the interview that she was interviewing with several other families. I was sure that some other family would grab her right up.

All during the following interviews, even the last interview, which was with a great graduate student, all I could do was compare them to my "perfect nanny." So, immediately following the last interview, I sent a e-mail to her to offer her the position. Which she accepted almost immediately, stating we were her favorite family she had interviewed with.

We've met with her again since then. And I am confident in our decision.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the boys having a nanny. I had wanted them to be with other kids. But there are so many things going on right now. They are starting school. Monkey is going full time for the first time. Hubster is starting dental school. I think this option provides the boys with the most stability. They get to be home. They will have someone dedicated to watching them. They won't be in a large class with a 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 ratio with the teacher. This is a good thing for our boys.

And the nanny is the right one for our family.