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Who Is The Holy Spirit - Part 5
2 years ago
Monday, May 11, 2009
My Dog The Nanny
My dog is just beside himself everyday until my daughter gets up. He paces the floor crying and she's started sleeping a little later, so I've started opening her bedroom door and sending him in to wake her up. It's hilarious because I just hear her door shut....so she gets up and kicks him out of her room and goes back to bed. Uh oh, she's already behaving like a teenager and she just turned 4.
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And now, I'm a nanny too. I just started taking care of a 2 year old girl, a 1 year old girl and 1 on the way in December. I'm really enjoying these sweet girls.
Awe, it was a good day for Riley....Daddy bought him a new duck and everybody played with him. To top it all off, he got the other half of my daughter's hamburger:)
As a nanny myself, this week I've witnessed the one year old start walking; I gave her her last bottle of formula and her first bottle of milk; and I've given her her first upright, forward facing car rides.
I have to say after spending two years with a picky toddler, my favorite thing about a one year old is that they love to eat:)
This entry is actually about my life as a nanny. I have never even considered being a nanny and had basically just turned my life over to God and let Him lead me where He wanted me to go. Somehow, I ended up on the gonannies.com website and explained that I'd never been a nanny, but I did have a 4 year old daughter. Three minutes after I posted, I got a call...was this God calling?...I don't know. I went and met with the family and I truly believed it was a good meeting. I'm very personable. They said they'd get back with me because they had several more people to interview. I prayed very strongly for God to NOT let them choose me if there was any reason I shouldn't be their nanny. After lots of prayer against the position, the offer came. I took it. I thought I'd asked all the right questions, but I'll be darned, I still left some unasked.
I told the mother not to make fun of me if she heard me singing Christmas carols to her children to get them to sleep (the father wears a cross necklace and has an Irish name). I always thought that the traditional lullabies actually had some kind of scary lyrics, so I chose to sing Christmas carols (Silent Night, O'Come All Ye Faithful, and Away in a Manger) to my daughter, since they were soothing and she'd have to learn them anyway. If she's still awake, I always sang patriotic songs (The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful and America) for the same reason-she'll have to learn them one day anyway.
I asked if there were any food restrictions and the only reply I got was that they didn't really want me to give them candy.
I've also got some OCDs and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, clean freak, germiphobe and I've never really been able to ask people for anything-helpwise. I do not view discipline as cruel punishment, but as necessary "heart-training". Kids require it because they don't know anything coming into this world. I believe that they are looking for guidance rather than the utter chaos of letting them make all of the decisions-they are not equipped for this.
I take care of two very sweet girls-ages one and two and there's a third baby due at the end of November. The parents are very nice, but it turns out that I have a few different beliefs. I feel God has put me with this family for a reason, so I'm desperately trying to figure out my purpose. Well after singing Christmas Carols, sharing my ham sandwiches with the 2 year old, and playing KLTY-Christian radio in the car all the time, it turns out the mother is Jewish-it never actually dawned on me that Jesus would ever be offensive. Now I just feel so uncomfortable. I do believe Jesus is the only way to Heaven and now I feel like I don't know which way is up with this family. I feel to awkward to ask the question, "so, are we teaching the kids to believe in Jesus, or not?"
There are other differences suchas: letting the children suck on a sponge (this just about kills the germiphobe side of me-mildew, mold, they both suck on the same one-so eachother's germs); wiping them off with the mildew dish rag and again, letting them both suck on it; being told to not really wash their hair, but just kind of rinse them with a wash cloth in the bubbly water. What can I do? Oh, and how about handing your 2 year old a Q-tip and letting her stick it in her ear? I guess my lesson here is that I'm too much of a germiphobe and they all still seem to be living-although, the first 2 weeks each of them was sick and no one ever considered calling the doctor.
Also, I mentioned that I don't really ask for things very well. I've always tried to be prepared to cover anything I might need myself. Well, the mother is a little different than me in that she would like me to try and get as much free stuff as I possibly can for her kids and if it's not free, I believe she'd just like me to pay for it. It's never really even come up to help me with my gas even though she sends me to the other side of town quite often. Well, now they've gotten a Suburban and I'm on the insurance and test drove it the other day when I wasn't being rushed to rip the kids out of bed and get them out of the house so the work at home parents can work-well, I even felt awkward about how long I drove around. We were just getting familiar with our surroundings since they would prefer me to get those kids out of there, but then I thought the kids deserved something fun and I went in search of Chick-Fil-A. Good food and a play area. I'd seen one several times, but I'll be darned I couldn't find one this day. We drove for an hour and a half and I must say I was a little nervous about explaining that, but on the other hand-I've used so much of my own gas for this family and no one seems to care about that...I did get sort of scolded for that. I really got scolded for the barrette that went missing from that trip. I've torn the house apart and looked outside. I actually cried the other day when I had to go against everything I believe in and while I was feeding the one year old a bottle of milk, that she actually wanted and has been resisting, the two year old was crying out a tantrum and making too much noise so she got to go to the park and the one year old just didn't really get to have her milk-she didn't even matter. That broke my heart! I hated every second of rewarding the child that was misbehaving and punishing the one who wasn't. God, please show me what my purpose is to help this family and also, help me to learn whatever lessons I'm supposed to learn. I've been perfectly willing to suffer some humility, but honestly, when that one year old pats me on the shoulder, or smiles so big when she sees me-it makes it all worth while. The two year old is also warming up to me, but not when Mama is around. She knows when Mama is around, she can cry to get whatever she wants and she gets to make all the decisions even though she is panic-stricken the entire time.
It was a good day as a nanny. I got along with the Mom very well and the kids were sweet. I think it's very important to figure out exactly what the mother would like to be focused on in the daily life of her children...as a mother, I think mom's know best.
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