Am I Ever Glad I Don’t Live With a Nanny-Cam…..

(From Margot’s’ days as a newborn) I don’t really know what nannies do all day with their charges, but I am entirely certain I would fail to qualify as one. Doubtless, a neurotic ideal of perfection figures largely in the job description – ever-ready with a cooing smile, a soft-yet-firm voice that is instantly obeyed, and a never-ending repertoire of games and songs – my own list of activities, however, falls somewhat short of the ideal….

Today, for example, in the dead zone of mid-day when my daughter awakes before my son and unplanned-for time must be filled, I elected to introduce Margot to intimate grooming. Not, I hasten to add, hers, but mine. I mean, come off it; we had nursed, read stories (see! Good Mom activity checked off the list!) and were both struggling with an agenda for the remaining time. So I thought (as you do), well, might be time to get out the ole’ razor and tend to the undergrowth a bit…. I mean - and this is what they don’t tell you about life with a toddler when you’re struggling with your first baby - she doesn’t yet have opinions of her own (at least, godforbid, not fully formed and highly vocal ones): As Mummy Camp Counselor, it falls entirely to me to compile our Daily Activity List. However, if I had attempted said grooming ritual with my three-year-old, I would have been swamped with a barrage of questions, not to mention flooded with my own thoughts of the possible (probable?) psychological damage I was inflicting on him… Margot, however, just widened her big, beautiful eyes with interest, as she does whenever confronted by a new piece of this zany world of ours – and there was another five minutes down of our hour alone.

And yet, it would never have passed muster under the all-seeing eye of the Nanny Cam…. Good thing I’m only her mother, then, isn’t it?!