The Nanny Bloggeries

Well, I officially have a nanny. Me!

Next I shall get a butler, or perhaps a stable boy, and then I can finally put my feet up, make some spa appointments and lament how terribly stressful managing one's domestic staff can be and honestly, if one more chambermaid gets knocked up by the gardener I may have to huff some opium and lie down, my heavens.

I actually placed an ad for a part-time "babysitter," but everyone who replied called herself a "nanny." And since I have personally seen what happens when some old businessman calls his administrative assistant a "secretary," I am going with "nanny."

(Also because I am beyond obsessive re: semantics, like this one time? We took my brother and his family out for dinner here in D.C., and they kept talking about their trip to the "Indian museum," which was really the Native American museum, which, okay, but we were at AN INDIAN RESTAURANT, where one would THINK the distinction would be at its most obvious, and aaaahhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee.)

ANYWAY.

I now have a nanny three afternoons a week. The constant white-noise buzz of rising anxiety that I've had humming in my ears for the past two months is gone, replaced by the sound of someone else referring to my baby as her little monkey downstairs. The dog and cat are overjoyed that the computer is their only competition for my lap, because at least it doesn't pull on their ears or poke its fingers in their nostrils.

Prior to like, today, my mornings are structured around Getting the Child to Nap. And then the minute the Child does fall asleep, I morph into a whirlwhind of frenetic panic -- SHOWER! LUNCH! NO TIME FOR LUNCH! MUST WORK! MUST WRITE! SHUT UP DOG! SHUUUUT UUUUP. (Noah: waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh) OH GODDAMMIT.

And then Noah is awake, and I've barely gotten anything done, but too bad, nothing else will get done until Jason gets home at 7, by which point I am drained and bleary-eyed and wondering if people will tolerate another half-assed photo essay or when my old boss asked for a certain important report by "tomorrow" if he really, REALLY meant "tomorrow" or if I could bullshit that I thought he said the "day after tomorrow" which was not my fault, it's been on HBO a lot is all.

But today? Because I knew the babysitter (nanny!) was coming at noon? And would be here ALL AFTERNOON, FOR AS LONG AS I WANTED? I ran the dishwasher. I put on eyeliner. I dusted the living room. I sprayed air freshener. I scrubbed away the Stain of Mystery that Jason and I have both been pretending to not see on the stairs.

I fucking organized our spice rack, people. And it was GLORIOUS.

When I first met Tessa (AMY: TESSA! IS IT OKAY IF I USE YOUR NAME ON TEH INTERWEB?) I kind of immediately knew she was my favorite candidate, but I remained stressed out about hiring her for DAYS, because hiring her meant having to tell the other three finalists that I wasn't hiring them. (Also, finalists? What, am I running my own reality show or something? Shut up, Amy.)

That doesn't sound like a big deal, but oh my God. Y'all. It killed me. I mean, I've rejected scores of job candidates in my day, but usually by a form letter that our team's adminstrative assistant mailed for me. And there's something different about grilling some fresh-faced college grad from behind a desk, wearing a power suit and pointy heels, with various awards and qualifications hanging behind my head, versus chatting up some super sweet young thing at Starbucks, in jeans and flip-flops, while Noah climbs over both of us in search of biscotti. Rejecting these girls felt like telling them that "after much thought and consideration, I've decided that I don't want you for a friend after all and possibly think you are a child molester."

Because I didn't think any of them were child molesters. I thought they were all lovely. But in the end, my gut said Tessa, and the most oft-repeated advice I received was to trust my gut. (AMY'S GUT: I WOULD ALSO LIKE SOME CHEESE NIPS.)

(Hilarious side-story: Tessa, like any smart person, promptly left our interview to go Google-stalk me, and stumbled upon this entry. Which she then talked about on her MySpace page, which showed up on HollowSquirrel's stats, which she then emailed to me, which I then emailed Tessa about because she seemed a little thrown by my sarcasm and thought that I thought that she was some kind of baby-shaking, balcony-dangling, bitch-slapping monster. And while she immediately assumed that she was officially out of the running for the job after writing about me on her blawwwwg, the whole crazy thing made her so crazy endearing to me that I hired her on the spot, because I have a deep affection for people who compulsively document their lives on the Internet, plus I ALREADY HAD HER BLOG URL, NO NANNY DIARIES FOR YOU, MWA HA HA.)

(But seriously. I am a cool boss. We're going to watch Dr. Phil together AND I totally intend to buy a case of Raspberry Snapple just for her.)

Of course, the only part of this arrangement that's killing me is that it's temporary. Tessa returns to school in the fall, and while I did have a few applicants that were available past August, they could only agree to work as long as we would still live where we do now, near the Metro, in the city.

Which. Um. We won't.

(DUN DUN DUUUUUN.)

We're moving. To Virginia. Where they still grow tobacco or whatever the hell.

Virgin. Ia. To a house with a yard. That we haven't found yet, obviously, as our place isn't even close to being ready to sell yet (you know we still never officially finished our kitchen? it is true. our cabinets have no door handles and there are still large holes in the wall.), and God knows what kind of real estate market downturn nightmare we face when it is. ("My goodness, this loft is LOVELY. It's PERFECT. I will pay you FOUR DOLLARS, plus some apples.")

Anyway. I don't want to think about now. I will think about that the day after tomorrow. Today I have to go tell Tessa that our toilet doesn't really flush all the time, and that she better not write about that on MySpace.

Apropos of nothing in this post, except wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Let's Go to the Zoo. Let's Go Right Now!

Amy: The fuckin' zoo sucks, dude.

That Weird Kid From Jerry Maguire: YOU SAID FUCK!

Amy: Fuck yes I did, fucker.

Anyway. Hi. We went to the zoo today. Why did we go to the zoo today? I DON'T KNOW. It sounded like a good idea at the time, which was while Jason (who took an impromptu day off, or maybe he got fired, I do not know nor do I care, all I know is he woke up this morning and vacuumed the house) and I lingered over a lunch of wine and stinky cheeses, gazing at our angelic sleeping child.  The zoo (which was just a few blocks away) definitely seemed like a good idea right then.

Jason: Noah loves animals! He'll love the zoo!

Amy: (thinking) Noah loves animals on the TV, just like he loves anything that's on the TV, including commercials for erectile dysfunction aids and So You Think You Can Dance.

Amy: (out loud) That's a great idea! Yes, let's go to the zoo.

So we went, and for several hours we wandered around the heavily-under-construction-completely-all-fucked-up National Zoo. Because it's the law, and because we love America, we went to see the pandas first. The female panda sat on a log. The male panda scratched his balls. Noah refused to even look in their general direction. Jason suggested we move on, but God DAMN it, I was not leaving the zoo without seeing that baby panda, who was born last July when I was hugely pregnant, marking the first and (hopefully) last time I actually felt insanely jealous of a panda.

The baby panda was sort of hiding behind a tree. I maneuvered my way through a crowd of photo-takers towards the far, far corner of the viewing area and sort-of half climbed up on the guard rail (WARNING: KEEP OFF GUARD RAIL) and twisted my torso over the rail until I saw the top of the baby panda's head.

I walked back to where Jason stood with the stroller. "Okay. I saw the stupid baby panda. We can go now."

"What did it look like?" Jason asked.

"Like a panda." I shrugged. "Although between you and me? I think Mei Xiang was stepping out on Tian Tian, if you know what I mean."

I elbowed him in the ribs suggestively. He did not have the foggiest idea what I meant.

We wandered around for awhile, marveling at the complete lack of visible animals, although this did nothing to damper our enthusiasm or determination to create magical awesome moments of childish wonder for Noah.

"NOAH! LOOK AT THE MONKEY! Wait, no. That's a rock."

"NOAH! LOOK AT...." (scanning exhibit for sign) "LOOK AT THE BAMBOO!" (pause) "Bamboo? Seriously? What the FUCK?"

"That's even worse than that sign over there labeled BEES AND WASPS, and there aren't even any of those either."

"Not that I'd really want to actually SEE bees or wasps..."

"No, me neither. I just dislike signs that LIE."

Finally, we actually saw some real live hot animal action.

"NOAH! LOOK AT THE BEAVERS! LOOK AT ALL THE BEAVERS! THE BEAVERS ARE EATING CARROTS, NOAH. AND THEY ARE ALL WET. HA HA HA WET CARROT-EATING BEAVERS."

Jason offered to buy me some ice cream after that, possibly to get me to shut up. I took Noah over to the sea lion exhibit so he could become entranced with a nearby garbage can. Jason returned right as one of the sea lions began barking loudly, which evoked the tiniest hint of a smile from Noah, which made both of us LOSE OUR DAMN MINDS.

"NOAH! LOOK AT THE SEA LIONS NOAH! NOAH! WHAT DO THE SEA LIONS SAY? ARF ARF ARF ARF!"

"Oh my God, you seriously bought a Choco Taco? From a stand called the BEAVER HUT?"

After the sea lion, the only other animal that Noah paid any attention to was a pigeon. He was actually pretty jazzed about the pigeon.

"Perhaps we should have waited until he was older to do the zoo," Jason said morosely as we stared at a map, desperately looking for the exit.

"Perhaps we should have remembered that we kind of hate the zoo," I sighed,  "Every time we come here, we spend half the day staring at empty pseudo-exhibits of bamboo and fucking PRAIRIE GRASS and...wait. Where are we?"

Somehow we'd ended up on some remote outer walkway of the zoo, behind some kind of administration-like buildings, and as we tried to figure out WHERE THE DAMN ZOO WENT, a huge truck rumbled by and went through a large and imposing gate.

"Holy shit, " I whispered. "It's Jurassic Park. They so totally have raptors in that truck."

Jason (wisely) ignored me and pointed out that we were actually coming up on some kind of weird petting zoo thing. "Look," he said. "Goats!"

"OMG GOATS." I gasped. "THAT ONLY PROVES MY POINT."

We decided to not force Noah into petting the goats or cows ("He'll only get attached, and then it'll be that much worse when the T-Rex eats them.") ("God, Amy. It was barely funny the first time. Let it go.") and continued our march towards the exit. Noah saw another pigeon and shrieked with giddy delight.

Noah also seemed to really enjoy his very first cab ride (because fuck this walking shit, I think were my exact words), and on the way home Jason mentioned that hey, at least at this age Noah was too young to throw a temper tantrum and demand that we buy him some expensive stuffed animal from each of the zoo's 30-odd gift shops.

"Totally," I agreed. "Especially since it'd most likely be an animal that we hadn't actually seen that day."

"Seriously. Like a bee!"

"Or a raptor!"

"Exactly. Although after today, I'd have no problem buying him a nice stuffed beaver."

Our cab driver gave us only the slightest glance in the rear view mirror as we both dissolved into laughter. It was a great, great day.

Oh Hell, Please Don't Make Me Write Sentences Yet

Because I cannot DEAL with writing sentences yet. With the verbs and subjects and participles and shit. I may no longer be at the beach, but in my mind, I am still on vacation. Except for the housework and the Advice Smackdown and the Clubbing of Moms and the full-time job of keeping Noah from sucking on various household items, from the dog food to the mail to the business end of a USB cable. Yes. Other than all of that I am still totally on vacation.

(At just barely nine months old, he's standing unassisted now. UN. ASS. ISTED. I could pretty much die from the pride/horror/sunrise/sunset-ness of it all.)

Anyway. Here are photos from the beach. (More will be over at Flickr in a bit.) (Except for the ones Jason took of me walking away from our blanket and down to the water. Those photos are going to be destroyed, right after I stop crying about them and finish this pint of ice cream.)

Noah, sampling the regional delicacy.

Eh. Gritty.

More sand eating. Tracey told me to prepare for Noah eating a lot of sand, and while I laughed and pretended to be all down with the sand-eating knowledge, secretly I was all, "Bwah?" Because it honestly never occurred to me that Noah would eat sand, like repeatedly, all damn day, nor was I expecting him to poop sand for days afterwards, although you have to admit that telling someone to "GO POOP SAND" is a really good child-friendly alternative to "GO FUCK YOURSELF."

In which I amuse Noah by attempting to build some sort of sand hill, which later took on the unfortunate appearance of a giant penis.

Noah loved the ocean at first, until Jason let a huge wave crash over his head. Then he was fairly timid (*cough* screaming maniacally in holy terror *cough*) and I am dumping the lifelong scar SQUARELY at Jason's feet because he made fun of me for refusing to carry my slippery, greased-up infant into the ocean because I was sure I'd drop him and then a shark would eat him and HA HA HA, paranoia pays off sometimes.

Especially for people who get knocked over by waves a lot. Big waves that totally nail you out of nowhere, just to wound your pride and your elbows, and to deposit about three pounds of sand into your bathing suit.

I forgot to apply sunscreen to my right ear, and only my right ear. Hott!

Noah returned home as lily-white as ever, because I am pretty much the world's greatest mother, and also because I kept a spray bottle of Banana Boat Baby SPF 50 tucked into the top of my bathing suit at all times, and I wish I were kidding about that.

Gone Beachin'

I kind of forgot to mention that we were going away for a few days.

So um...guess what! We are away. At the beach.

With this lunatic. Whee!

Mina & Noah: A Portrait in Mutual Baffled Fascination

Noah loves the Big Kids more than life itself, the Big Kids enjoy tickling the Baby (Mina, for the Three Hundredth Million Time: HI BABY! BABY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME BABY? BABY!) and the Very Big Kids enjoy chocolate donuts and tequila for breakfast.

Life is good.

So very, very good.