The Nanny Diaries, Part 2

We let Viviana go after she finished the ironing last week.  There was a lot of ironing. 

Over the weekend, we interviewed two ladies.  Neither of them had any references;  neither had ever worked for an embassy family before.  Both primarily had experience as nannies, but were willing to clean as well.  Since I am at home with Annika, I like someone who will interact with her but I need someone who will clean.  A nanny who will clean could be a very good fit.  Carolina was young, with a 3 year old daughter at home.  I liked her immediately.  Maxima was older and has no children.  She made a good impression as well.  But at the end of the interviews, the fact that we liked Carolina and Carolina seemed to like Annika so much made her the winner.  We asked her to arrive at 7:30 on Monday morning.

At 7:00 on Monday morning, she texted with an excuse for not coming to work.

It is certainly a shame for her if she makes it to work every day, but something extraordinary arose that night to keep her from our house that morning.  But skipping the first day of work is unacceptably unreliable.  We asked her not to come back.

We called Maxima.  Amusingly, we both liked Maxima on Sunday during the interview.  But once we decided on Carolina, we both focused on her negative qualities and forgot the positives.  She was coming this morning, but I was nervous.

She arrived at 7:00 in the morning and immediately made herself useful.  She cut the fruit for the school lunces.  She fixed the cereal.  She acted as my soux chef while I prepared sandwiches.  And she cleaned up after everyone.  Now, I am a mother who appreciates personal responsibility - but our house moves very slowly in the morning, until moving very quickly in the ten minutes before the bus pulls up outside our building.  On this school morning, everything went smoother when Maxima swooped in and cleaned up our messes.

She spent the day helping me, chatting with Annika and cleaning the house.  I did not watch her much, but I did not see anything disappointing after she left, either.

If every day is as good as her first day, I think I will be quite pleased with Maxima.

As an added bonus, she told me today that she enjoys baking.  She had guessed that I enjoy it as well.  She also enjoys cooking, and hopes to cook lunch for us sometimes.  This leaves all sorts of exciting time-saving options open for our family down the road.  We'll see where this goes, but so far the direction feels positive.   And I feel relaxed.