A Trip Down Nannny Memory Lane by Robin Gorman Newman

Seth's former nanny called.  It's been nearly three years since she left.

We were in the middle of eating dinner in the kitchen, so the answering machine (on speaker)  picked up, and I was stunned (we were all stunned) to hear the words "This is Eunice....."  She went on to say timidly that she'd been thinking about Seth, had wanted to send a birthday card but misplaced our address, so decided to swallow her pride and pick up the phone.

I was going to jump in and grab the receiver, but I was so taken aback and didn't want to interrupt our family meal (it's not too often we get to all sit down together, and my dad was visiting).  She asked that I call her back, yet she didn't leave her number (I still had it on my cell.).

She was always loving and devoted to Seth....and honest.  These are important things when you take someone in to live with you.  She spent nearly five years dwelling in our less than swanky basement, caring for Seth from age 8 months to close to 5 years.  She was dependable (for the most part), and she became a friend to me. We had many close conversations, and she got to know all of us, including my senior dad who frequently stays over when his aide goes home weekends.

On the challenging side, Eunice didn't take good care of her health.  She had scary high blood pressure (and would sometimes forget to take her pills or run out), and asthma (including bouts of misplacing her inhaler, only to inform me the morning after that she almost died during the night until she got her hands on it.). 

This was all worrisome, to say the least. Here was a woman we hired to watch our son, and help with light housework and occasional cooking, yet ultimately, I started to feel like her caretaker.  I grew more and more ill at ease with the situation, and things came to a head one Friday. 

Eunice informed me that she had yet again made an appointment to visit her clinic, and it was on a Monday.  She knew that Monday was my standing gym appointment, yet she persisted in going that day of the week.  I suggested she make her appointment on a Friday, and she got all flustered and upset, accusing me of not showing concern for her health.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  I was glad to see her taking action, but it impacted my workout schedule with a trainer that wasn't flexible.

We wound up having a heated argument, and she left.  We did intend to let her go in a few months due to our plan to do major construction in our basement, but we never anticipated things would come to a head as they did.  It was a big disappointment.  She left in such a rage that she barely said goodbye, despite our giving her a generous severance (which we scrambled to provide...quickly ran to the bank....since this was not planned).

So, when Eunice called, all these thoughts came flooding back.  But, since three years had passed, I wasn't harboring any ill feelings. In fact, I felt sorry for her at the time, leaving without another job. 

What was interesting to me was that when I returned her call, and we got past the initial awkwardness,  I found myself falling back into the familiar.  I appreciated hearing her voice and respected the interest she was once again taking in my family, asking about all of us.  There was something comforting about it.  It felt genuine.  I even put Seth on the phone to say hi....though he's not much of a phone conversationalist.  I invited her to visit us, if she wanted to make the trek from Brooklyn, as she used to.  She said she'd like that.  She wants to see Seth again, and I am curious how Seth will react to her.  We'll see if she makes it over here.  I'll always hold a fond place in my heart for Eunice.  She was there for us during a time when childrearing felt like unchartered territory.  She was there during the potty training struggles, diaper changing, walking, etc....many a milestone.....much of which almost feels like another lifetime ago when Seth was that young.  It went by in a flash.

As a mom who doesn't have a mom, Eunice made me know that I wasn't alone, and there was a lot to be said for that.  We've never had any parental or family help, so having a nanny was the way to go for us.  I'm grateful that we were in a position to afford childcare, and I'm grateful for the fact that we chose a kind, big-hearted person to embrace Seth particularly in his younger years.  Kids can never get enough love, and moms deserve to be supported in any way possible.

I Will Never Pass This Way Again by Maureen Eich VanWalleghan

One of the tasks in the course Awakening Joy (www.awakeningjoy.info) is dancing. To that end, my dance tape desires have met the iTunes store. Wow, I love that I can buy single hit songs that make me want to dance around the room...I am listening to my new Happy Dancing playlist now. I once had a cassette tape I made with my favorite tunes, I wore it out. I would usually play it before going out, especially if I was tired or not that into my preplanned outing. Listening to upbeat music is always a mood lifter for me, so at midnight as I write my blog for this week—a bit early, because I have been invited by my husband to rendezvous with my daughter at his hunting camp...it seems that hunting alone is not that fun—I am feeling happy despite the late hour as I listen to music I haven’t heard in quite a long while.

Knowing that I needed to write my blog tonight, all day I was considering this exact moment in my life while my daughter is in kindergarten. This semester I have taught three courses at the community college, done some lecturing for the public library about memoir writing, advised two grad students for a low-residency masters program and worked on my film; oh yeah, I was also a wife and a mommy. Dang that is a lot and I clearly seem to be in keeping with the plight of moms today: I am overwhelmed, harried and tired. As my husband likes to say, I am trying to pack 10 pounds of fun into a 5 pound day. I am also worried that I am missing the boat on this moment with my daughter. I will never pass this way again. It won’t be too long till my daughter needs me less and less. The decision before me is to cut out the aftercare she goes to three days a week after her half-day kindergarten. My girl is tired too and I want her to have me everyday after school like I had my mom’s time when I was in kindergarten.

As I pondered what adjustments to my schedule I would need to make, I realized that the money I put to her child care I could spend on an assistant to do a lot of the paperwork that bogs me down in my filmmaking work. I mostly keep up with my teaching work, partly because I have done it for so long that I have systems that work for me. Also the content of my teaching is fairly predictable since I teach the same courses over and over. It’s never exactly the same, though I do know where I am headed and the methods I will use to get there. But, with my filmmaking there is a lot of paperwork to be done for the producing component of my projects. All that paper is taking over my desk, which makes it hard to work and think, which means I work much less efficiently than I would like.

Restructuring work and rethinking H.’s schedule are all a part of my personal quest to have balance between my work and my personal life. Since I work for myself and mostly control my own schedule, I am really trying to make reasonable deadlines for myself. I am the boss so why beat myself up with expectations that are unrealistic and incredibly stressful and draining. Partly, I still live in my old world where I was a single power-babe who could leap intense deadlines in a single bound. Now there is a tripling factor to most every deadline I set and try to meet.

Finally, with my filmmaking I just decided to relax and take my time and stop worrying that opportunity was passing me by as I doddled along. I am doing okay, but I want to give more time to this exact moment with my daughter. At this point there is only one more semester of half-day kindergarten and then her schedule will match mine more closely or vice a versa. What’s a few months of scaling back compared to missing out on the love fest I am having with my daughter? I guess I’ll see how I feel when summer gets here.