Okay, so as of my last post, I was kind of hoping this was just a bad start and things would work out. By the time I read your comments and heard the opinions of, well, anyone who would listen to my experience, I realized it was unlikely. I started to put out the word that I was looking again. I figured in the meantime I could see if things would improve with Nanny.
A and Gatito went out of town Wednesday night-Sunday, so I kind of knew that I was unlikely to hear if anything went wrong in the last two days of last week. But I had my parents come by on Thursday at 5:00, unannounced. (They brought me dinner, too!) They found Nanny in the kitchen on the phone and were told that Ella was upstairs taking her second nap. (She only naps once, typically.) My mom went up to see and found Ella playing in her room (in the dark). In my experience, Ella has never snuck out of bed to play when put down for a nap. If she doesn’t want to nap, she will scream until you get her. I could “make up a story,” as with all these other things about whether she did something different with Nanny than she did with me, but I didn’t like that Nanny was not aware that she was even out of bed.
This morning, I texted Pow and told her things were going poorly and she volunteered to come back for another 2-3 weeks. A and I agreed that we would let Nanny go at the end of the day. I was still, honestly, a little worried that perhaps we were not doing the right thing, that we wouldn’t be able to find anyone better over the next few weeks, that maybe she’d just gotten off to a bad start and all those things were as innocent as they might have been if they’d happened independently, rather than all in a lump.
The crazy thing is that A got to work this morning and realized he left his computer at home. He went to a meeting, then headed back home. He arrived at 11:00 to find Nanny asleep on the couch. Gatito was playing in his room with a friend and Nanny declared Ella down for a nap, though she popped out the moment she heard A come home. He let her go on the spot. She told him she hadn’t been feeling well– had meant to tell us that. Then, she says that she’d had diarrhea and had soiled her pants and they were now in our dryer. She went over to the dryer, pulled out an entire load of her own laundry, and left.
The end.
Not really the end, of course, because there’s a lot to say about what A and I think of our judgment and our parenting abilities, but I don’t have the emotional energy for that at the moment, so I’ll leave it at this for now.
Oh gosh. That’s appalling. I’m so glad you caught it as early as you did. Truly, we’ve all had a bad hire (or 3) in our time – work or at home. I had a bad cleaning lady. I’ve had bad employees. They all look swell on paper – and clearly can interview well. So, don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m just sorry you have to hunt again!
You poor thing!! You should feel good that you caught it so quickly. What a nightmare.
How awful! Glad you’re done with her.
You will find a better option. Poor employees get hired all the time – an interview is a snapshot and it’s important that you continue to assess as you go. This is why so many employers have probation periods, etc. You can’t possibly know how everyone will turn out in advance. Does not reflect on your parenting or judgement. If you had not listened to your gut that things weren’t right, if you had ignored the pile of strange/neglectful incidents, etc. because it was easier to look the other way than consider replacing Nanny, THAT would show poor judgement.
Totally agree with this!
Hope you find a fabulous replacement–soon!
OH MY GOD. How horrible. I hope you find the right person. Those two things are non negotiable wrong. The messed up schedule and the alarm I can understand. The daughter being a bully and these two things are awful.
That is so, so horrible. I’m so sorry. You must be beating yourself up all over the place. Just be thankful you caught the problem early, and that nothing bad happened to the kids. I know that you will be a little more discerning in the next round of interviews. Focus on recommendations from people you actually know and things will go much more smoothly. Hang in there.
OMG! I have an IRL friend whose husband got laid off, came home from work early and found the kid parked in front of inappropriate TV (not supposed to watch TV during nanny’s hours) and Nanny *taking a dump in the yard*. True story. I would put your experience up there with hers. Ugh!!!!! You will find someone great. Glad you got her out of there so fast!
Ugh…what a disaster.
It’s such a tricky thing because (as you know), individually there are excuses for everything. (I actually had a sitter who was overcome with stomach flu while she was watching the kids and did have to do some laundry for this particular reason, but she had texted me to let me know what was going on so I could go home and relieve her–which I did ASAP).
Cut yourself some slack!
I’m so sorry! Please don’t beat yourself up. As someone said, you can’t know everything from an interview. The important thing is that you got her out of there ASAP and no harm was done. Crossing my fingers that you find someone wonderful who can make your life easier and set your mind at ease.
Oh. My. Fuck. I am so glad that she is gone. *hug*
Don’t beat yourself up, you are doing the best you can. I shudder at the thought of how long we took our son to a very reputable preschool and tried to figure out why his behavior was so bad there. Once we took him out and put him in a different preschool because we were tired of battling with his teachers, he was back to his normal self. As our pediatrician put it, he never bonded with his first teachers because they weren’t nice to him. We were so worried about introducing another change and upsetting him more that we failed to see it.
We are all doing the best we can, I’m glad she is gone and pow can at least help in the interim.