Nanny and the Professor

With confirmation in hand that the plans for the Big Day included a Big Snub, with two of our children honored as bridesmaids, while the other two would not be extended the courtesy of an invitation, I had to work extra hard to reel in my inner Mama Bear. I had more pressing issues. Clunking heads together would have to wait for another day.

With one child in her last year of elementary school, and the other entering his first year of the Hell that is middle school, I needed a part time nanny. Not just any nanny. One who could drive.

And one who could deftly heat up a home cooked, pre-portioned meal like a modern day Libbyland TV dinner (http://theyalwayscomeback.blogspot.com/search/label/LibbyLand) and then get my cheerleader and offensive lineman into uniform and to practice before I even left my office.


J. suggested his mother.

"Why not?" he asked. "She could use the money and the kids could get the full-on Mommom treatment." I imagined that would include both the "Go ahead and have an extra cookie" and the "Poke your sister one more time and I'll snap your finger off" treatments. I warmed to the idea. It's not like there was an overstock of grandparents lying about the place. My mother has been nomadically roaming the South moving into and out of houses for a dozen years. My ex's mother has shown some decency by keeping her particular brand of crazy a safe distance away on the West Coast. The granddads, sadly, had passed.


"Ok," I said, and made the call.


I could lower my neurosis a notch with an adult in the house who had already successfully raised two children (more or less). On the other hand, I've known J.'s mom for a dog's life, but truthfully, how well did I really know her?

Will she cringe when she sees that my flower beds look like they are tended by Lilly Munster?

Will she gasp in horror at my taste in furniture? Drapes?? Lamps???

Will I get a lecture on balanced meals and healthy snacks when she gets a good look inside my cabinets?

OMG my medicine cabinet!!!

Will she cringe at the dust bunnies blowing like tumbleweeds under my credenza and the sticky pool of melted and refrozen water ice that formed inside the freezer when "somebody" left the door open during a double episode of Drake and Josh?

Better take an objective look at the liquor cabinet, hello!

Or worse, will I come home to find laundry folded and furniture dusted and rugs vacuumed because "no one should have to live in that condition just because their mother works."

Breathing into a paper bag, I reluctantly decide that the benefit of having my mother-in-law babysit outweighed the risks, even if she is only a reasonable facsimile. There was a lot of good that could come out of this. The kiddos would get some Mommom bonding time. And maybe that could eventually lead somewhere.

Because as it looks now, unless someone has a change of heart in the next few months, or grows a normal sized frontal lobe, the Big Day was going to be a Big Debacle.

How could I, on that day, put on my beautiful dress and leave my kids with a sitter, a different sitter, while I step out for a big family event with the man I love and the family I hope to join, without them, when everyone else is there?

It may not matter to them that night. But how will they feel on the next holiday, when we are sitting around J.'s mom's table looking at all 75,000 pictures, and they realize that all the people at the table are in the pictures except for them? Right down to the two guys at the end of the table whose names I can never remember. (Who I swear were the inspiration for Chucky Margolis and Allen from the Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show http://www.tvparty.com/varhudson.html) I know how they'll feel. They'll feel like I traded them for a new family. One they thought they were part of, but must not be after all.

It doesn't matter that Em and Chuck want a wedding with no kids. There will be kids - they just found a way to include the ones they want there by putting them in the bridal party. And excluding the rest. No negotiating.


I need to break the news to J. that if this is the Juvenile Jury's verdict (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_Jury), I will not make a fuss, but I can not in good conscience attend an event this significant without the kids. I will not be on his arm that night. It is not a choice I can knowingly make at the expense of any child, much less my own.

The verdict is in. Sentencing in April. Bail is set at $200 a plate.