The Nanny Diaries - a day as the V family's nanny

Let me just point out, as a bit of a disclaimer, that today was an exceptional day. Normally, I only have Alice for a few hours in the morning, and then Arin between school and bedtime, but because Koi was catering for a party tomorrow and needed to go to various supermarkets and Thai shops and then cook a billion dishes, I agreed to look after the kids all day. I like what I do here, otherwise I wouldn't still be here, and I have never before heard them trying to concieve child number three. I also want to point out that this actually did all happen, I'm not exaggerating. Life with these guys is normally this comical. Because the story of why I now resemble a zombie began last night, the story begins yesterday afternoon...


3.30pm - Arin cries upon seeing me, rather than mama or papa, coming to collect him from school. Give him cookies and suddenly he turns into an angel that happily walks out the gate holding my hand. Bribery and corruption, hell yes.

4pm - Drag Arin around the supermarket to get something for dinner, thanks Koi for telling me that I was cooking tonight, and for six people, only three minutes before I left the house. And I mean literally drag, because he threw tantrums when I refused to buy him crap from every single aisle we walked down and kept lying on the floor holding onto the end of the basket I was pulling behind me. I thought going down the pet food aisle was a safe way to reach the pasta without encountering things that look appetizing to small boys. Two minutes later I found myself saying "No Arin, no matter how much you cry, we are not buying dog biscuits when we don't have a dog. And yes, Alice might like to eat them, but I don't think Child Services would like us to let her".

5pm - Finally arrive home. The bank manager is here talking to the grown ups, so I take Alice so they can talk without a screaming banshee in the background. There is something wrong with this kid, in the evenings she she cries every. damn. time. that you try to put her down somewhere to play while you do something else. Unfortunately, I only have one pair of hands, and they can't hold the baby, help Arin with a jigsaw and cook dinner all at once. Normally, whoever cooks dinner just lets the baby sit and cry, but with Bank Manager here some epic juggling and one-handed manouevers ensued over the next two hours.

7pm - Arianne (the girl that comes to speak dutch to Arin) and her boyfriend are late. Arin is given a sandwidge (not by me) because he is hungry. In my head I remember mum saying "No, if you have a biscuit now you won't eat your dinner".

7.30pm - Dinnertime. Is Arin eating his dinner? No, he's not. Thank you very much, sandwidge giver.

8.30pm - Arin with Arianne, baby with Koi, and I have finished cleaning up the clusterf**k that was the kitchen post epic-meal-cooked-by-one-handed-superwoman and Arin doing three seperate, although now very mixed up jigsaw puzzles while only barely supervised. How did jigsaw puzzle pieces end up in the microwave, seriously?

8.45pm - I am looking at the clock. Arin is happily playing with Arianne, but his bedtime is normally an hour earlier. Which means he will be grumpy tomorrow, and guess who's picking him up after school?

9.30pm - Arin is in bed, baby is in bed, Arianne and boyfriend are sitting with Koi and Jan and a bottle of whisky. I am taking the babymonitor and going to bed.

11pm - I am lying awake listening to the four of them downstairs via the baby monitor, which hears everything through the paper-thin wall and which I cannot turn off incase the baby cries during the night. Grrr.

12pm - Koi and Jan apparently decide that since the wall between our two rooms is paper-thin, they will enjoy the pleasure of each other's company in the living room. I am not even kidding. How do I subtlely inform them that there is also a paper-thin wall between them and the baby monitor, which they handed to me earlier in the night.

1am - Koi and Jan are in bed. Baby now decides to wake and do that pitiful not-really-crying-just-wimpering-for-ages-before-falling-back-asleep thing. I decide I hate the baby monitor with a passion.

3am - Arin wakes up and makes his way to Koi, the opening doors and footsteps also waking me up.

6.30 am - Arin wakes me up. Arin never comes to me when he wakes up in the morning, Koi gets him up and ready for school. The times we've specifically wanted him to wake me up instead of them we had to put big signs on Jan and Koi's door and even then it didn't always work, thereby lulling me into a false sense of security about sleeping in only my underwear. So now its 6.30am, I've barely slept, there's a four-year-old jumping on my bed, and I'm in only my underwear. Awesome start to the morning, and now he is going to be really tired and therefore exceptionally grumpy today.

totally look like I've had no sleep

Why did he wake up so early? Because he was hungry. Again, huge ups to the sandwidge-giver. I should really get revenge by sending him in to wake them up, but there's really no point in all four of us being sleep-deprived and grumpy today.




7.30am - Koi wakes up and relieves me of Arin, and I head back to bed.

8.30am - Having only fallen asleep 15 minutes earlier, now baby wakes up. Breakfast and bathtime for her it is. At least I manage to watch a movie and skype my parents and grandparents, and put through loads of dishes and clothes to wash while looking after her. Multi-tasking win. Unfortunately, this will turn out to be the most productive part of my day!

11am - Baby back in bed. I would go take a nap myself except unlike her, I don't sleep through the noise the builders make. Is the whole world conspiring to prevent me sleeping???

12am - Baby awake again. Lunchtime for both of us, play time for her, and then back to bed between 2-3pm

so hungry she's eating her own foot....nanny fail

3.30pm - Baby still not asleep. She yawns and cries and snuggles into me and then the minute I put her into her crib she jumps to her feet and laughs. It's like she's taunting me. I've tried everything that normally gets her to sleep plus some others. At least Koi has called to say she can collect Arin, so if I can get baby to sleep I might actually be able  to get half an hour of child-free time.

4pm - I pull an unorthodox trick out of my hat. I've noticed that every time I've had Alice and talked to someone on Skype, she's fallen asleep. Its freaky, it'll be the middle of her playtime, when normally she is bouncing all over the show, and as soon as I start a conversation she falls asleep on me. So I skype Hauke. Ten minutes later, she's asleep in my arms. I put her in bed and head for the coffee machine, looking wistfully at the liquor cabinet on my way past.

4.30pm - Koi and Arin are home. Koi is doing Thai catering for our neighbour's birthday party tomorrow, so I look after Arin while she cooks.

5pm - Arin falls asleep in Jan's arms. They move him to the couch and run to the hospital to see Jan's mother. Two sleeping children, awesome! I head to the mattress in Alice's room.

Cutest advertisement for FoC ever?

5.30pm - Alice wakes up. I think I got about 15 minutes sleep again. Time for her dinner and 'quiet play' so that she doesn't wake Arin up, i.e. I take her up to my room so the noise won't reach him and she eats my bathroom products and Flight of the Concords DVD. This is when I took all the new photos of her, I now feel guilty for taking no photos of Arin recently to include :-(

7.30pm - Koi and Jan are home. Jan wakes Arin up so that he will actually get back to sleep again later on in the night. Arin is not happy. Tantrums are thrown by Arin for being woken, and then Jan and Arin for being hungry. They eat ice cream while they wait for Koi to cook dinner. Again, I hear mum saying "if you eat a biscuit now..." At least Jan spends the next couple of hours entertaining him leaving me with just Alice to contend with.

10pm - Alice was only slightly easier to get to sleep this time, she drunk her bottle and then rolled over to sleep like she normally does, I breathed a sigh of relief, and then she popped up onto her feet and chuckled evilly, before collapsing in a tired crying heap again. Finally she nods off.

Jan is now working on the alphabet with Arin, Koi is still in the kitchen, and I am off to bed! I love how Jan got woken up at 9am by the builders, and spent the whole damn day complaining about how tired he was (he normally works until around 3am and wakes at lunchtime, he's a night owl). Dude, I've been looking after your kids since 6.30am. Shut up before I smack you with a sandwidge. Preferrably one that you've made for your son right before I serve him dinner...