angela

i thought this was a great picture of angela with the boys. she is sitting calm and and perfectly coifed...
and the boys are both caught in motion:)

this post has been a long time coming, but i have been behind my game in the blogger world. for the first year of donovan's life we were lucky enough that my mom came down and took care of donovan for us 2 days a week. because i work 3 days a week, we had the third day covered by different people that were wonderful but could not commit to long term with donovan. so, after over a year of travel for my mom and running out of options with sitters the decision was made to hire a nanny for 3 days a week.

the process of finding childcare is a doozey. i was told about some websites that help you find childcare and was so freaked out by the thought of them that i refused to look at them.....until my patchwork system of childcare began to stress me out more than the idea of finding a sitter online. and so the interview process began.

the first lady i interviewed i realized was a bit of a wildcard based on her profile, but i did not want to ignore the possibility of a fantastic nanny! she had lots of experience working in preschools, was a mother, played mrs. clause during christmas and played a clown the other times of the year. now i know you are thinking "really megan"?....i was just keeping my options open. we realized this would probably not be the best fit when she arrived to the interview driving a clown car and telling her story of just getting a ticket on the way to the interview. so i guess that means you don't have a clean driving record?? during the interview we focused solely on her family trauma.

second interview......a really nice lady. not driving a clown car, and says her driving record is clean. i am thinking things are already looking up! one of the things dan and i wanted out of a sitter, since donovan would not be in a full time setting with other kids, was for the nanny to take him to activities outside of the house. when i asked this lady about taking him places she said, "i love to go to bj's" (which is a wholesale grocery store for those of you that do not know). when i asked if she had any questions she said, "so you are not like a helicopter mom are you? i find it is really hard to be a sitter for those helicopter moms."

third interview......her profile says she was a stay at home mom and her kids are now grown. she has a master's in counseling (that got my attention!) and only wants part time work. things looked really promising so far. in the interview i found that she had grown up in wilkesboro (love a girl that knows the country!), went to mars hill college, worked in counseling before kids, son had reflux, and that is just the beginning of things that we had in common. dan and i had wanted to do at least 4 interviews, but when we went over this prospect we could not find any red flags and felt like we needed to jump on it.

angela became our nanny in mid-august, and she is wonderful! donovan loves her. it is the best feeling for me to say, "ok mama is going to work. give me a kiss goodbye." and then to hear donovan say, "bye-bye mama" as he goes over to angela, or as donovan calls her "anlaa". angela likes to be outside as much as donovan so they go to parks and take lots of walks. she takes him to his gymboree classes and to the children's museum. they also have been known to pick up some groceries for mama and check out the goods at steinmart. angela's mother lives with her and will come over with angela sometimes. donovan is use to gram bringing her entourage so he loves the extra attention! another plus with angela, she loves buck and buck loves her. dan and i totally lucked out because she also keeps donovan for us when we have date nights. i knew we had made the right decision when i came home one night and donovan's stuffed animals were all dressed in his clothes and shoes.....i just love a sense of humor!