Hectic Weeks

We have done a poor job blogging this month. It has been hectic without my parents here. I had found a temp nanny through the nanny agency to take care of Mason for 2 weeks. The nanny we had last year and loved was not available. But the agency assured me that this nanny was just as good with great recommendations and an infant expert.

Debora arrived Monday 4/7 at 9 am as agreed. She was in her late 40s or early 50s, she seemed nice. We gave her the tour of the house, told her about Mason's routine and feeding schedule, and I could see that she was not all that interested. I was going to work from home that week, but with full days of meetings and catching up from my previous week of vacation, I was not planning to leave the office much. At 10 the crying began, but I figure she could handle it, since she was an infant expert! I went out 2 times to check that everything was OK, each time she just left me with Mason alone and never tried to troubleshoot why he was fussy (we found out later that he was teething). Mason took a nap between 11 and 12, and by noon, she came to tell me that it "wasn't working out for her" and that he was too upset with her. What does that mean??? By then I was frantically cancelling and rescheduling my meetings, and calling Bill to come home. She called me to feed him, since he wasn't eating - I don't know if she was expecting him to use the spoon on his own. He ate OK with me, and after the bottle, she left!

I was too desperate to cry. I called the agency to give them some "feedback" on their infant expert. By the afternoon, we had made many calls and had different options for Mason's care, none which look ideal. Finally, the agency had found us a nanny that we had dismissed because she seemed too young to us (19!!). However, Ashley had 5-6 years of experience with two families with multiple infants, and she worked while finishing her HS classes at night. We felt that took commitment and a special teenager, so decided to meet her that night and see how she interacted with Mason. Ashley was fantastic with Mason and came for the rescue in the last 2 weeks. In retrospect, having Ashley worked out for the best.

We also had Bill's dad and Sandra visit between 4/11-16. It was great to have them here. Mason seemed to remember them from Christmas. They were able to change their plans to stay a couple of extra days to help Bill, since I had to go to Wilmington for business.

Bill's sister Shawn is visiting this week and watching Mason. She is great with him! We will be posting pictures and videos of Auntie Shawn making Mason laugh while hula hooping.