Ever come home after being out on a Saturday night and find your nanny on your ipad “face-booking” away with her friends….the house looks mediocre at best like you could spend the next 20-30 minutes cleaning up from the night which is the very last thing you want to do.
What would your your dream list be to come home to if you had one? Here is mine.
1. Kids ideally having played their favorite games with the babysitter really caring and loving playing with them.
2. Teeth brushed, (yes I check the toothbrushes), hands washed or fully bathed, counters cleaned up from teeth brushing, and everyone having gone to the bathroom before bed (not in bed in the middle of the night).
3. Kids read to for 30 minutes and tucked in. 4. Kids peacefully resting…with little smiles on their faces. Okay, maybe a bit much.
5. Dinner fully cleaned up. That means pots dried and actually put away, not sitting out to dry. Yes I am picky. I own a nanny agency for g-d’s sake.
6.. The floor would be swept under the kitchen table and by the kitchen sink.
7. The counters would be windexed or something of that nature. No messy finger prints from dinner time left. I said I was picky.
8. The couches would be fluffed and straightened up with the toys removed from under it. We have down and it dents and mushes down with overuse from three little boys jumping on it.
9. Any laundry in the laundry room fully completed and folded. When you have three kids you get over worrying about people seeing and touching your laundry. Believe me. If you want to do it go for it. Just please separate the kids clothing by size so I don’t have to spend an hour sorting it.
10. In the most perfect world the babysitter would sort the toys after my children are done playing for the night (once they are sleeping of course). This means trains go with trains, cars with cars, stuffed animals with stuffed animals, action figures with action figures. Everything has a place.
11. Taking the initiative to do something extra in addition to all of this.
We are usually gone for 4 hours. A lot can be done during that time. When my clients are paying me to work I do not spend my time texting with my friends on the phone or catching up on my family gossip. I spend it thinking of ways to make sure they feel like they had the best experience possible. Shouldn’t all people take their work this seriously? I once had a sitter on a weekend clean my oven because “she does not watch tv”. I love that sitter. The best part is my kids love her too, she is a nurse, and she comes to work ready to roll, every time.
Just some thoughts from the peanut gallery. Till next time…
Stacie Steelman
