Galloping Cats

I spent a lot of time writing about our first nanny. Remember her? Remember how she was late all the time until one day she just didn’t show up, but that didn’t stop her from complaining about staying till the agreed-upon end time or for asking for more money? Remember how many times I chickened out of firing her?

Well, it was meant to be, because Tata has officially been with us for one year and she rocks. In fact, she is so awesome that one of the first things I thought when I accepted my new job is that now I could give her a raise. I cannot tell you what a difference it makes in my life to know not only that she is going to show up on time every day, but that Gatito is thriving in her care.

Tata has four or five girlfriends that take care of young children, and they hang out with them almost daily, so Gatito gets lots of social interaction.

Of course, there is the Spanish language thing. My kid is bilingual! With his pale skin and red hair, he is the ultimate gringo, and the Spanish-speaking people they meet absolutely *love* hearing Spanish come out of his mouth. (Side note: A and I noticed that his (English) language skills got a lot better over our two week vacation– his sentences got longer and more complex. We wondered if his Spanish would regress after the hiatus, but Tata reported that the gains he made in English translated right over to Spanish. While obviously he did not acquire more vocabulary, he was able to create longer and more complex sentences in Spanish. I find that fascinating.)

For his birthday, she made him an amazing card, baked a cake and decorated it with cars, bought him a toy car (as did her boyfriend), and requested to attend his birthday party, along with one of her nanny friends who also loves Gatito. For Christmas, it was another incredible handmade card and gift and a scrapbook she put together of pictures of them from throughout the year, along with his artwork and his various certificates (for first hair cut and completing library story times and the like).

She sends me picture messages from her phone periodically throughout the day. (Or she did, till I started my new job and stopped getting service. Grr.)

On her own initiative, she started potty training officially this week (he’s been using the potty about once/day– with her only– for the past few months but there’s been no rigor to it) and he’s already gone poop on the potty once. (The pediatrician at his 2 year appointment said he was surprised Gatito wasn’t trained already, given that apparently Hispanic people tend to train earlier!)

But most important of all, she really loves Gatito, and she misses him when they’re not together. When she came back after two weeks off on Monday, it was all in a flurry, and she leaned over to him in my arms and gave him a big kiss. He turned to me and said, “Tata’s funny!” He was happy to see her, too.

It’s so amazing to be able to focus on my job and not worry about him every day. Not that I don’t think about him and wish I could be there with him, but since I can’t, Tata is without a doubt the very next best thing. She just better not ever leave us!