My Kids, the Journey of a Live-In Nanny

© 2014 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/24/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1919-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1920-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910973

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One In The Beginning

Chapter Two New York

Chapter Three Nanny Issues

Chapter Four Families, Kids & Love

Chapter Five Virginia

Chapter Six Deale

Chapter Seven The Perfect Family

Chapter Eight Dad’s Death

Chapter Nine Leaving The Perfect Family

Chapter Ten Triplets, The Beginning

Chapter Eleven 1St Year

Chapter Twelve Terrible Twos Times 3

Chapter Thirteen The Triplets, Then And Now

Chapter Fourteen Life Continues….

For All Of My Families In This Book

Dedication

To my kids, I love you all more than words can ever say and there is no one on this earth that is more proud of you than me

INTRODUCTION

A s I sit watching my latest two kids eating their lunch, I think of all the experiences, people and places that have passed through my life. The children of course will always be a part of my life, as well as the homes I have lived in. If I sit back and concentrate I can almost picture every room in every house. Most of the houses still feel very much like home to me when I walk through the front door. It makes a person feel good to have so many homes, so many places where you can just sit and be yourself and chill out. I know that not all live in nannies have the same experience. I haven’t either in all the homes I have lived in. I see myself as one of the lucky ones because I do feel at home in most of the houses. I mean I go to my Mom’s house but I don’t think of it as home, its just Mom’s house. It might be different if she still lived in our hometown and in the house where I grew up. When all of this started I never dreamed that someday I would be looking back on a 24 year career. A career filled with so many little faces, giggles, hugs, kisses and first words. You are going to read those words a lot in this book, giggles, hugs, kisses and all, so get used to it. A huge sense of pride and overwhelming emotion fills me when I think about it. To think I have had an important role in so many little lives. Live-in nannies become part of families or at least I did. Live-in nannies become a friend and a confidant and a never-ending source of love and support for the kids and their parents. I hope that when you read this book you will have a better understanding of the nanny and her world. My hope for this book is parents and nannies will learn the importance of communication and understanding. I hope they both will learn to see things from both sides. This book is about my kids and our journey together and it is for all of the children in this country. I truly hope it can improve the image of the American nanny. I would love to see that image get back to that of Mary Poppins. I know that sounds silly, but take a moment and think about what she did for that family. Now I am talking about the movie version not the book version, in the book version she is very different. But in the movie version, she taught that father how to be a Dad. She brought that family back together, remember in the end of the movie, they go skipping off into the sunset hand in hand. If we can get that image back then childcare in this country will improve and then you know what the future of this country improves, because the children are the future.

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE BEGINNING

I n the 24 years that I have been a nanny some amazing, scary and very funny and wonderful things have happened. Several people whose opinion I value immensely said that I should write all my adventures down for people to read. They all said that it would make a great book. So for better or worse, let the adventure begin.

First things first I need to do is to give credit where credit is due. My love and desire to be what I am started with my grandmother. She was my father’s mother and my Nana. Nana was my best friend when I was a little girl. I believe that she planted a seed in me so to speak a strong love for small children and especially babies. I will forever be in her debt for that I will always love and cherish her memory.

The actual nanny deal started in 1989. I was living and working in my hometown, Amarillo, Texas. For those of you who might not have had the great pleasure of being in the city of Amarillo, just let me say this about it. It is very flat, somewhat treeless and very windy most of the year. The best part of Amarillo is without question the people.

I was then a part of a wonderful group of Americans known as the working class poor. That is about everyone these day. I was working several jobs, as I still tend to do just to make ends meet. Those jobs included a pizza place, it had three locations in town. I worked at all three locations. I also took care of two unrelated children and worked in a small family run daycare. This was long before cell phones were available to the average person, so finding me was not always an easy task. My poor father had to find out the hard way several times.

Being a native Texan you understand, I had never heard of a quote unquote live in nanny. I remember watching Mary Poppins as a child and not really understanding exactly who she was and why the parents didn’t take care of their own children. Never dreaming of course that I would someday live her life, sort of, I mean I wish I could make things magically appear out of my carpet bag, if I had one that is. Man, wouldn’t a magic carpet bag come in handy sometimes!

Small town Amarillo was out of the loop when it came to nannies. Until one day in late 1989, I was looking in the want ads and there was this ad. A nanny placement agency had placed this ad about becoming a nanny. It promised great pay, travel and the chance to go to school. Wow, I thought a chance to do something I love to do care for children and get paid well and see more of this great country of ours. I don’t have to tell you I jumped at the chance. I showed the ad to my Mom and asked her what she thought. She said that it was at least worth looking into and that it sounded exciting. The next day I made a phone call and started the ball rolling on my career as a nanny.

So after what seemed like tons and tons of paperwork and several interviews, the stage was set. I was told that parents would begin to call me. Parents did call from all over the country, but one struck a chord. It was a single mother with three young sons from Long Island New York. We must have talked for almost 3 hours over the phone, we had an instant connection. I didn’t know then what I was myself into, but it’s like they say hindsight is twenty/twenty. All I knew was that I was ready to get out of little old Amarillo. The sort of sad thing is now, I would give almost anything to go back to little old Amarillo and the simple life I had there. A couple of summers ago, I was on vacation with my family and we were in Texas passing through these small country towns. I found myself wishing that I could move there and enjoy the simple small town life again.

My father, God bless him, was not happy or excited about my decision. In some ways I had mixed feelings as well. The chance to see the world on one hand and my family on the other hand. What about my family? What about my grandmother, who depended on me for so very much? I had never lived away from home, away from Mom and Dad. How was I going to do this big move? Did I have the courage to do this? I felt sure I did. I knew that I was very excited and I knew that there wasn’t much for my future in Amarillo. The worst part was yet to come though. Telling my grandmother was going to the hardest thing I ever had to do. Moving away from home, far away from home to strangers no less, let’s just say it wasn’t going to be a popular event. Even though my grandmother had four grandkids including me, she and I had something very special. We connected in many ways.

When I finally got my courage up, I told her about my plans. She cried and cried, it was truly horrible. I hope you understand that this is my Nana, the grandmother I talked about before. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of her, but she was a little self-centered to say the least. Her way of looking at things and people was how it or they were going to affect her and her life, it was all about her. When I was a child, I was to young to understand or see and that is the way it was for my sister and brothers. But as we grew up, we could see the way she truly was. I was the only one of the four of us who was close to her as an adult. I knew how to talk to her and I knew not to let the awful things she would sometimes say get to me and honestly I was the only one who would just tell her to shut up. Anyway I said to her don’t you want me to happy after all it is my life. She just continued to cry and didn’t say anything. It made me mad the way she was acting. She was acting like a spoiled child crying to get her way. I didn’t say much else to her and didn’t have or show any sympathy for her. You know what, as I sit here and write this, I remember that she and I never talked about it again, she never complained about my leaving her again and for her that is huge.

My father wasn’t much better he didn’t cry of course, but I knew that deep down he wasn’t happy. He always used to say he wanted all of us kids to live in Amarillo just south of Western street. My Mom told me years later that he wasn’t really unhappy, but just worried about what I was about