It is my pleasure to introduce you to this week’s guest blogger. Miss Ashley is a 25-year-old nanny living in Southern, Indiana. (She is still trying to figure out how she wound up there.) She is an avid blogger at Copious Musings and has quite a time exploring the wonderful things that nannying four small girls is teaching her.
Please do not call Nanny 911 on me. I know–this isn’t the premise of the show. She comes into crazy households, controlled by rambunctious children lacking strong parental guidance. She is the one who does all of the nannying magic. So she definitely wouldn’t come to the house that I nanny in to set me straight…would she?
I never envisioned myself as a nanny. I started off my naïve childhood believing that one day I would grow up and be a teacher. I would teach students so much wonderful knowledge in such an entertaining manner that they would name their firstborn after me. (Note: when I was younger I might have had a SLIGHT ego problem). But, through my current, short stint as a nanny, I have discovered that there are quite a few things that have come out of my mouth that I would have never considered saying to a child.
Please hear me out. It was a completely innocent idea in its conception. When the children (all girls under the age of 5) had a strong knack for driving me completely insane, I made a hypothetical realm of punishment for the children. It was named, beautifully and cleverly so, “The _______ Pound”. In the blank you inserted any of the children’s names and you instantaneously had a place of disaster custom fit for that particular child.
This harmless concept grew into a monster over a short period of time. I was constantly chiding,
It was generally met with the beaming smiles and giggles of little girls who understood that I was only teasing them. (So I thought.) The second oldest is very much a gullible darling. She is easily tricked, and so teasing her is much more satisfactory. (YES! I said it! It is a sick twisted thing to admit, but it’s only fun if they play along!)
I had told the youngest at the time that I would send her to the baby pound if she did not calm down. We were hurried about preparing for the gender reveal party of the fourth darling. The second oldest, we’ll call her B, began to melt into a pool of tears. Confused as to why this three year old had gone from excited about being in a party dress to tears, I was beside myself.
“What is the matter?”
“I am going to miss the baby! I just love my baby sister so much!”
“Woah, woah, where is she going, exactly, B?”
“To the baby pound! You said she wouldn’t be the baby anymore after the new baby came! You said you were sending her to the baby pound!”
After many snuggles, and plenty of reassuring back pats, I convinced the darling that I wasn’t going to send her sister anywhere. I also reminded her that I would bring this very moment back to her memory when she had complaints about her sister. Please don’t tell…
Have you ever gently teased children about something made-up?
Did an adult ever convince you something fake existed?
Hahaha! I love it.
I remember visiting my grandma’s friend who soon had me shouting out to the frogs in their pond, “Here froggy, froggy, froggy.” My grandmother whisked me back into the house even though I was convinced that I only needed 5 more minutes and they would all come hopping to me.
lol! Too funny! I love how literal kids can be.
My grandpa use to tell my sister and I that if we ate the crusts of our sandwiches, we would be able to whistle. I don’t think my sister can whistle even now as an adult, despite the countless bread crusts she ate… 😉
When I was eight years old, my sister (twenty-one years old) and I watched all of The Planet of The Apes movies together. She told me that the “Planet of the Apes” isn’t just a movie, it’s real! They live in Hollywood, California. I believed this story for about two years,
I tell my kids at school “I’m going to flip you” no ones knows what filling really is…. Please line up quietly or I’m going to flip you…it rely causes more funny chaos. I don’t know what they think it is so funny! Perhaps if is the smile on my face….
What flipping really ….and if really ( maybe I need to concentrate on spelling instead of flipping!
My charming big brother told me once that a certain rock was actually a trap door and if I stood on it, I would fall down into a cave. I avoided that rock for years!
My mom used to say she was going to replace me with a new girl if I didn’t behave. All she’d have to do was say was “I’m calling the new girl,” to terrify me. I’d have appreciated a good old fashioned spanking so much more.
Love this. Hilarious. I’m also a nanny to four girls and have said a few regrettable things… Last week “that’s something a baby would do. Should you nap with the baby??” To the 7 year old.
Or mommy threats “guess I will tell mommy how mean you were today” what a tattle tale!
Funny! My mom threatened to sell us to the gypsies whenever we acted up.
I raised 3 sons and was 1 of 6 in my own family. I’m so glad my mother did not know about the ‘baby pound’; for my own, I should have learned about this sooner. 🙂
Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner and commented:
The “baby pound” – who knew?
I just LOVE your blog, you are so funny, your sense of humor is awesome. I am a fellow born and raised Calgarian! I can’t wait to read more!