Today was a big day at the Vargas - Crawford household! After nearly a week and a half of not-much-news, nothing-too-exciting and the same-ole-same-ole, today brought a whole new experience for Baby Sophia
and her parents!
The story actually begins about three weeks ago when Pablo and I decided it was time to nanny-hunt! Things in wedding-world have been picking up a bit and keeping both brides and Sophia content at the same time is like juggling five spiked flaming balls in the air. At times I have trouble just walking down the cobblestone street, so needless to say, juggling spiked flaming balls is not my cup of tea. We realized that things were only going to get more complicated as weddings get closer, brides get less patient and Sophia does the same!
We started by telling everyone we know to keep their eyes and ears open as we were looking for an excellent, reliable, responsible, fun, near-perfect person to be our daughter’s nanny for six hours a day in our home while we work downstairs in the office. We got a couple recommendations.
I called the first on Friday afternoon. She answered the phone. She sounded nice and responsible . . . but was she
really near-perfect? She was meditating by the river. I cringed. I pictured my daughter levitating off her bedroom floor, hovering in the air somewhere above the colorful noisy toys she should be playing with instead of doing baby yoga. I hung up the phone and called the second.
She answered and had experience. She nannied for years for a lovely family. She said all the right things. We met. She wanted a bedroom and a bathroom and to live in our house. I took her home and said Goodbye.
Sophia (not to mention mom and dad) was feeling quite sad about the lack of prospects.
So we put an ad in the local newspaper and waited for Friday when it would come out, the phone would ring and Mary Poppins would enter our lives. Except that the paper made a mistake, and our ad never appeared, the phone never rang and well, Mary Poppins . . . you get the idea.
So we placed another ad the following week and waited anxiously for Friday to arrive. Friday didn’t come soon enough; by Tuesday I had a meltdown. Brides’ emails were filling my inbox and Sophia simply wasn’t content to sit by and watch me answer them! So I called the river meditator out of desperation. I figured levitating wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to my daughter, and she
had been highly recommended! So we made an appointment to meet the following morning at 10 am at a café (across the street from Office Depot).
The next day, I woke, showered, fed, played with, dressed and packed up Soph and hauled her to Café Canela where I anticipated our grand meeting with M. Poppins. Around 11 a.m., my dream nanny had not arrived. Angry at the world, I packed up Sophia once again and headed home. On the way I received a phone call from Nanny. She had waited for an hour across from Home Depot. I still am unclear on exactly what was going through her head as there is certainly NO café in front of Home Depot as HD is located 15 miles out of town on the main highway with nothing nearby. Nevertheless, I figured perhaps her head was in the yoga clouds and we made another appointment to try again the next day.
Soooo, you guessed it . . . the following morning I woke, showered, fed, played with, dressed and packed up Soph and hauled her to Café Canela where Nanny Lorena awaited. Sophia immediately smiled and the rest is history. We talked over coffee (well, Chai – I hate coffee!), then I drove her to her house where she invited me in to see her home which was cute, organized, clean and cozy – I was convinced.
Today Nanny Lorena and Sophia spent their first day together (with mom and dad peeking in occasionally . . . ok, often, to see how things were going). I plugged in the baby monitor downstairs and heard lots of singing, cooing, baby talk and silence! Silence! My baby who doesn’t nap for more than 20 minutes took three 40-minute naps – most likely due to the exhaustion from having someone playing exclusively with her (without any emails to answer on the side!)
So today, being Friday, our ad appeared in the local paper, and we have received about 30-35 phone calls from women interested in the position, but our family has already settled on Nanny Lorena.
We’ve always believed that things happen for a reason, and this time, I’m thinking my Tuesday meltdown led us to the phone call that led us to Lorena just in time - before today, when we would have set up 35 interviews with 35 women and not have found our Mary Poppins because she was meditating by the river rather than answering ads. So once again, we find ourselves feeling so fortunate and blessed to have found the near-perfect person to take care of our perfect baby!
Oh . . . and there was no levitating today. All play took place at ground level.
Here is the new addition to our family – Sophia and Nanny Lorena:
