It’s been an interesting week with our new nanny. Of course, it was rough the first two days when our baby was still getting acquainted with and used to her. It was brutal for me to sit in the second bedroom with my headphones on, just one wall separating me from my crying, screaming baby with a new nanny just trying to do her job and calm her down. Regardless of what call or what recording I was listening to, I could always hear her screaming, and it really broke my heart and made me feel like a terrible mom. I would occasionally come out of the room to try to comfort her, and while it would work, I didn’t want to get into the habit of doing it too much because I didn’t want to undermine the nanny or make the nanny think I didn’t trust her. These things just take time, as the fourth and fifth days have been going really well so far.

Our nanny certainly has opinions, though, and ways of doing things with other families that we just don’t want to do. For example, I will have Kaia wear the same onesie to sleep and the same outfit two days in a row assuming that they aren’t dirty or wet. Kaia is a baby, so she doesn’t have body odor the way adults do, so why bother changing the clothes if they aren’t dirty?

The nanny noticed I laid out the same pants for the baby to wear that she undressed her from the previous day, and she asked, “Aren’t these the same pants she wore yesterday?” I said they were, and there was no point in washing them if they were still clean.

“They aren’t clean, though; she wore them yesterday,” the nanny insisted.

“Did you have her roll around in dirt or grass at the park yesterday?” I asked her. “The pants look and smell clean. She doesn’t get body odor like adults do, so she’s fine.”

“She’s a baby, though! Babies are dirty!”

I told her that unless the baby was all over the playground or in mud, she wasn’t dirty, and adults were far dirtier because we actually smell and sweat. “Okayyyyyy, you’re the mom!” the nanny said, shrugging her shoulders in an exaggerated manner and putting the pants on the baby.

At the end of the first day with us, she asked if I wanted to have her empty the diaper pail every day. I told her that whenever it looked full, she could empty it.

“Most moms I’ve worked with ask that the diaper pail be emptied daily,” she said, looking confused.

I told her I didn’t think that was necessary given the whole point of having a diaper pail was to contain the smell of poop/pee, and if we emptied the pail every single day, that would create far more waste of garbage bags and be worse for the environment than necessary. And none of us would really benefit from that given what I said originally about smell.

She also wanted to have the baby use a new bib for each feeding. At that rate of use, we’d have to cycle through all her bibs every 2-3 days, which seemed ridiculous. If the bib only had a little spit up or could just be rung out, I wanted her to reuse the bibs. She gave me this look as though I just smeared baby poop all over her face.

Fridays are baby laundry days now, so when I told the nanny not to put the washed clothes in the dryer and instead to lay them out around the dining room table (yes, we’re hobos), she asked why we didn’t have a drying rack to hang the clothes on. I told her it just felt like unnecessary additional clutter, and given she was only going to be a baby for a finite amount of time, we’d just air dry the clothes up until the point we would add them to the dryer once she got bigger. She gave me some side eye and complied.

She is probably going home to her husband and telling him that her new nanny family is cheap and dirty. Well, that’s all right by me. We’re still getting used to each other. Things are going well given it’s now day 5, so we just need to get through the initial 2-week hump, and then we’ll be acclimated to one another.

On Monday when the nanny started, she seemed a bit warmer than she was when she did the trial. During the trial day, she seemed a bit formal and stiff, almost on edge probably given she knew I was evaluating her and watching closely. She hadn’t really given us any information in regards to what snacks she’d like to have in the apartment, so I told her we had lots of mangoes, and I heard (from one of her reference families) that she enjoyed mangoes. She smiled and said she noticed all the mangoes in our fruit bowls and was wondering where we got them from.

“But I have to tell you something…. you don’t know how to pick mangoes,” she said, with a somewhat mischievous, cheeky smile on her face.

Did she seriously just insult me and accuse me of not understanding mangoes… ON HER FIRST DAY? What does she know about how I choose the mangoes? She didn’t even look at them up close!

She explained that she grew up in Jamaica, so she always had many varieties of mangoes growing up, especially fresh ones picked super ripe off the tree. She said here, it didn’t matter if they were red, green, or yellow, that she knew how to choose the ones that were picked ripe vs. not ripe, and the ones picked ripe were always the best.

Okay, that’s a bit ridiculous and presumptuous for a couple reasons: 1) mangoes don’t grow in the U.S. other than in Florida, and I don’t really care for Florida mangoes. 2) the majority of mangoes in the U.S. are imported from Mexico, and when you are crossing borders with fruit, especially fruit as delicate as mangoes, it’s pretty much impossible to pick the fruit ripe and transport them long distances without destroying them or having them go rotten. As a result of this, mangoes need to be picked green and unripe and then ripen off the tree. That’s sad, but it’s just a fact of living here and eating them. 3) There is just no way in hell she is getting mangoes picked ripe off any tree anywhere in the northeast of the United States no matter what she tries to tell me. She may have grown up in the tropics with mango trees galore, but I understand food transport and what is real vs. fantasy.

“You do realize that the majority of mangoes in the U.S. come from Mexico, right?” I asked her pointedly. I told her that the yellow Ataulfo mangoes were generally the safest bet here. She disagreed, but hey, we’re all entitled to our own opinions.

We’re still getting into a groove. She tends to get a little defensive when I give suggestions or try to correct her, but well, this was always going to happen regardless of how good she was because I’m working from home and will see her interacting with my child, and well, I AM this child’s mother, so I know how she behaves generally and what she likes and doesn’t like. Overall, she seems a bit timid and like she is still coming out of a shell, but her opinionated side comes out at odd times like it did with the mango scenario. Hopefully she’s just quirky and things will smooth themselves out over time… Because I really do not want to have to search for another nanny.

Tonight, Chris and I went to a wedding of a former colleague friend of mine. When I originally got the invitation late last year, I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to go. This colleague was a good friend of mine while I was at my former company. But ever since I had left this company, we really hadn’t spoken much at all other than a few texts here and there. I saw her just once last October. So I was actually surprised to have gotten an invitation. But Chris just said that we should go for the food and drink. We hadn’t been to a wedding since before the pandemic, so why not go? After ensuring that a friend that I actually still keep in contact with from this company was going as well, I reluctantly decided to RSVP yes. That friend ended up bailing out last minute because she tested positive for COVID the day before. Ugh, just great.

Well, we went to the wedding tonight, and it reminded me of all of the things that I hated about my last company. Don’t get me wrong: the wedding was beautiful. It was really well done. I enjoyed the fact that both the bride and groom wrote their own vows. I thought that the best man speech was really heartfelt and sweet. The food was amazing, particularly at cocktail hour when there were multiple food stations and endless hors d’oeuvres being served. There was an open bar, which of course made Chris happy. But I was reminded of things like… The bro culture with a number of white guys in the New York office. And some of the prissy, gossipy, dramatic women who used to be in that office who unfortunately were also in attendance. And some of the HR bullshit that I had to deal with while I was there… Like the one person who tried to report me to HR because I told her that she needed to lower her voice while on a call in the middle of the floor because the rest of us were on our own calls, and her voice was carrying. She actually was invited to this wedding to my disgust. Back then, she apparently got really upset and told HR that my tone of voice was very rude and unprofessional. And if you can believe it or not, HR told my manager and asked my manager to talk to me about it. Yes, that’s the kind of ridiculous bullshit that is a high school like that I had to deal with at my last company. And you can bet that I absolutely did not speak with this person at the wedding or even make eye contact with her. This is definitely the last time I ever go to a wedding where I know that there’s going to be a lot of ex-colleagues who are going to be there. 

And what made this even worse is that the babysitter that we hired was a complete moron. And I think that our baby got the sense that she was terrible because she was crying and screaming nonstop when we left. I should’ve taken that to mean something. This babysitter put our baby to sleep in her bassinet without her swaddled as I requested, and she even left a bib on her. You never, ever leave a bib on a baby when she goes to sleep. That is considered unsafe sleep because the baby could potentially get strangled! Plus, the swaddle blanket was just hanging on the bassinet above her! The babysitter apparently told us that pretty much all of the time when she was not eating and awake, she was crying. My baby hated this person. And this person left a bunch of her trash on my kitchen counter and a bunch of her food bits all over my sink. She also left food stains on our dining table. When we got home, our baby was in her bassinet sleeping, and the babysitter was on her phone on our couch. She didn’t even bother cleaning her trash before she left.

This is why people prefer to have trusted family and friends babysit. Because you wouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. Or, they just don’t go out at all once they have a baby.

When I was chatting with another mom who was a night nurse reference, I told her that I was used to the house being spotless. I had a regular schedule when I would clean the bathroom, I would sweep the kitchen every week, I would clean the kitchen countertops at regular intervals. I liked everything exactly the way it was, which was super clean. I was very averse to dust and felt like I was constantly dusting. She laughed and told me that I was obviously a first time mother. “You need to learn to let go of all of those things,” she said. “When you are able to rest, you rest! Who cares if the shower has not been scrubbed in two weeks. You need to prioritize rest and sleep, otherwise you will never rest or sleep!”

Well, since the baby has arrived, this apartment has not been vacuumed even a single time. I have gathered dust bunnies and put them in the garbage. I have swept and dusted a number of times, but I have cleaned far, far less than I normally would. I still insist that our bathroom is cleaned every two weeks. I clean most of the bathroom, and Chris will clean the shower and the bathtub. I will be honest and say that his standard for cleaning the bathtub is much lower than mine, but hey, you can’t have everything perfect, otherwise you will end up doing everything your damn self. So I had to let go of this. 

I have also been cleaning the mirrors less. I used to spray and wipe them down every month. Now, I have probably sprayed and wiped them down maybe three times in the last 19 weeks. And I only sprayed and wiped down the parts that I could reach. I did not do my usual thing before baby and actually get on top of the sink and toilet to get the top parts of the mirrors. Again, this is something that I learned to let go. And though I have done this, you know that I have not been as anal because there are streaks all over the mirrors. I absolutely hate streaks on mirrors. I used to proud myself on having streak-less mirrors, though I never shared that with anyone. What is the secret to having streak-less mirrors after cleaning? Well, the main secret is to use very very hot water while wiping them down after spraying and scrubbing. The hot water is very key. This allows all of the excess grime to be removed from the mirrors, and any streaks will just evaporate. Some people will use a half-and-half mixture of water and vinegar, but I never really found this necessary. Now, I care less about the streaks. All of our bathroom mirrors have streaks now. I hate it when I see it, but I have to learn to let go of some things clearly… so this is one of those things.

So yes, I am a first time mom. And I am gradually, gradually learning to let some of the cleanliness obsession go.

Today, Chris decided to get a Zipcar for a few hours so that we could make a Costco run and also go to Little Italy along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. We took the baby with us, as well. It was actually funny to think about the fact that in the nearly 19 weeks she’s been here, she’s only been in a car one time, and that was during her trip home from the hospital after discharge. When I took the car seat out to get ready for this quick trip, I even had to remove the newborn insert in the seat; she used it only once!!

This time, she’s obviously way more alert and aware of her surroundings than she was when she was only two days old, and barely even that. I wasn’t sure how she’d be while I buckled her into her five-point straps, but she wasn’t fussy in the least bit and actually seemed entertained. She enjoyed being in her car seat and even babbled a bit. She definitely looked and sounded very comfortable.

And it’s a good thing that they make car seats like ours without a base being required because if we had to install a base into every single rental car, that would be absolutely frustrating and annoying.

Today, I went to visit the Bright Horizons daycare center location that is closest to our apartment. It’s about two blocks away, so very convenient. I was not very keen at all on our baby going to daycare this early. I really didn’t think that she would benefit much from being there. The number one benefit to being at a daycare center as opposed to having a nanny, at least in my opinion, is that the child would have more socializing opportunities with other kids of a similar age. And that would give them the opportunity to learn to be around others and share and communicate. Well, my baby is just over four months old, and she doesn’t really care who is around as long as her mom and dad are there. She’s pretty oblivious to other kids now, as we learned from the time when my friend visited with her 18-month-old daughter, as well as when we took our baby to a friend’s twin girls’ third birthday party. So this visit was really to scope out what a day in the life could look like when our baby is at least one year old. I am still not certain I want her to attend daycare at one year old, as I think it may be better for her to go to daycare when she can actually talk, but I am still open to the idea, sort of.

Bright Horizons doesn’t really consider itself a daycare center. It’s really more like school. And when the director showed me around and showed me the schedule of activities per age on the walls, I completely understood why. There is actually a set curriculum that varies every single day. There are different learning targets for each stage of growth. They have scheduled nap times and scheduled play times and scheduled learning times. They also have things that the kids are evaluated on. And those evaluations are shared with parents via parent-teacher conferences. Yes, that is what I meant to say: parent-teacher conferences. Your one year-old will have a parent teacher conference if your child attends Bright Horizons!

The center looked the way I kind of imagined it in my head. It’s laid out the way that I imagined. They have areas where there are cots for naptime. They have play areas and tables for activities. All of the instructors have bachelors degrees or higher in early childhood education or related areas of study. These are people who are not only passionate about children, but they are passionate about learning. I watched some of the teachers interact with the children through the glass, and it was really clear that these people are very engaged and are not just there to collect a paycheck. 

Then again, given that this daycare center is essentially going to cost about $4,000 per month, these people better give a damn about the children and learning and be doing 120%. Honestly, at that rate, you would think that they would also be serving the children high end sushi, like toro and uni, for lunch. 

I remember looking at the rate card and thinking to myself, how the hell do everyday working class families afford this type of daycare?? This is not affordable for the average family. We are clearly not the average family to even consider this daycare center for our child. This country is so screwed when it comes to child care in general. It is embarrassing just to think about it.

We had two more trial nannies come, one yesterday and one today. Yesterday’s trial nanny was very kind and sweet. She clearly loved babies. But her notes were atrocious and she kept on trying to force our baby to take naps. She also didn’t always follow instructions even though I wrote her very clear notes. Chris was not really a fan of her, but I told him that because she was so nice and amiable, I had confidence that she could take constructive criticism and improve based on what we shared we wanted ongoing. She wouldn’t be the first choice, but she could be a decent second choice.

Today’s trial nanny almost never even came. Like with most of the nannies who have come for trials, Chris suggested that I write some brief notes to all of them before they came, just with basics such as the baby’s eating schedule, the fact that she is going through pre-teething, her vitamin D supplement, and the fact that she does not have a nap schedule per se right now but that the nanny would need to use her own judgment to decide when she was tired and needed to nap. I wrote the same notes and copied and pasted these to every trial Nanny after the first one. I guess the length of the notes threw off today’s trial nanny because when she took a quick glance at my notes, she tried to rule herself out and said that she did not think that she could meet my expectations and that she would need to pass on this job. I was initially really disappointed, especially because she was so warm and friendly over the phone. Plus, her references raved about how attentive to detail she was. She seemed like a genuinely good person who would do her best job. So I messaged her back and asked if there was anything in particular in my notes that she thought she could not actually do. I told her what her references shared with me, and I told her that I thought she would be a fit based on all of this. She responded and said, yes, she did pride herself on her attention to detail. And she did take the time to re-read my notes, and she said that it all sounded very straightforward. Maybe it was just the length that caught her off guard. So she would still come. I told her that we wanted all of the trial nannies to have the same information ahead of time but that I would walk them through all of this when they came on site. I just wanted to give the information ahead of time so that there were no surprises.

Well, it seems like it’s a good thing that I messaged her back and didn’t accept her eliminating herself from the process. Aside from the fact that she seemed extremely shy and reserved when she came in, which was so different from how warm and smiley she was on our video chat, she did an amazing job. She was really thorough with everything, whether it was bottle cleaning, cleaning up the play area or the bathroom after the bath, and the notes… The notes that she took were so, so thorough. They basically were like the notes that Annie used to leave us. She wrote down exactly what I wanted her to write, from the poops and pees to the amounts that the baby ate to even the activities that they did and how long they did the activities. I did not always like how she held the baby (actually, I’ve already seen this multiple times now: why is it that some nannies think it’s comfortable to hold a baby with your arms between her legs??), but I corrected her a couple of times so that she understood how my baby likes to be held. And she was fine with that. I also didn’t think that her bath was that thorough, but I gave her some feedback and she took it. I am not expecting the trial nannies to be perfect. But with hiring a nanny, it’s similar or the same as how you would hire someone at work: there are certain things that you can coach on and then there are other things that you just cannot teach. You can coach someone on how to hold your baby the way that she likes to be held or tell them that you want things laid out a certain way on the kitchen counter for the baby, but you cannot coach someone on how to love babies and actually care. That just doesn’t work.

So today’s nanny may be it. That is, unless someone else makes an offer and we go through another ridiculous situation as we did a couple weeks ago. Fingers crossed.