The nanny story: Getting lost

It was a hot hot day here in Miami. It was mid-May and I decided I wanted Wendy's for lunch. We were trying to modify the nap schedule a bit around the house so since my son was looking like he was going to fall asleep standing up, I took him with me to grab some grub. Unlike most children, my kids are not soothed by a moving car. Instead they are hyper-alert pointing out each thing that zooms by their window or whining until I can't take it anymore. The nanny stayed home with my daughter and I took my son for a spin.

We go to Wendy's, get the food and head home. All in all about a 20 minute round trip (I would like to mention that Wendy's is only 1 mile from my house, that is how bad the traffic is here). We get home and I notice the house is empty and the stroller is gone. Obviously they've gone on a walk, I eat my lunch and look at the clock. It's 1 o'clock. I got home at 12:30pm and the new naptime is at 1:30pm.

Hmmm. I think, that means they've been on a walk for at least 30 minutes but possibly 50 mins. That is quite a long time in the heat. My heart started to race a bit wondering, where is my daughter? The next 30 minutes went by in slow motion. I could hear the clock slamming each second, after second, after second. At 1:30, I went and put my son down for his nap because he was practically hanging on my leg begging for his bed. I came back out of the bedroom and just stared out the window.

Thoughts were flying through my head. Did she kidnap her? Did a van pull up and take the both of them? (that does happen here people) Did they not look when crossing the road and get hit? Are the police and the news crews one block over and I don't even know?!?

1:45pm. No sign of anyone. That means they have been outside for at least an hour most likely. The heat index was 105, humidity in the 80% range. There is no way anyone can deal with that type of heat, let alone my baby girl. I start getting enraged. What do I do? Do I call the police? Do I wake up my son and throw him in the car to go on a hunt? By 2pm I'm almost crying. The nanny's shift ended at 2pm. Not only did she know about the 1:30pm naptime, but she definitely knew she was off at 2pm.

I imagined press conferences with me standing on a podium pleading "Whoever has my baby to please return her back to me". I could already feel everyone watching me with doubt, secretly thinking I was the main suspect. I called my husband. He told me to calm down and he was on his way home. I was about to hang up with him when I see her running down the sidewalk pushing my 11 month old daughter's stroller.

I meet her at the back door ready to just explode. She looks me in the eye and says, "oh hello! Are you ok, you look worried?" I snap, "Where the hell have you been! What's going on!" She said, "oh, I've been walking, why are you mad!?!" I look down at my daughter. She is bright red, has sweat dripping from her forehead and is covered in mosquito bites. I look at the nanny and she is also sweating from every inch of her body and breathing heavy.

I lose it. I demand to know what happened, why she was gone for over an hour and a half in this heat, why was she running if nothing was going on etc. etc. She finally gave in and with an explosion of emotion went on this rant about how she got lost and she couldn't find her way home. She tried to call her son to pull up a map so she could get back. She tried to call her husband to come and find her so they could get back. She asked a mailman to escort her in his little square truck so she could get back. She did everything she could think of....except CALL ME.

She said she was afraid if she called me I'd be mad and think she was stupid. I told her I was already mad and I already thinks she's stupid. How do you get lost in a grid. Miami is not like Pearland or some other master planned community. It's parallel and perpendicular streets. Avenues run north and south, Streets run East and West. No cul-de-sacs, no bends, nothing interesting. A gigantic grid. At this point she is sobbing so hard that I can't even understand her.

I grab my daughter, give her cool water, change her clothes, dab hydrocortisone on her bites and put her down in her crib for a nap (that she gladly takes). I come back out to the living room and she is curled up in a ball on the couch. It's not so much she got lost, it's that she didn't call me and then she attempted to lie to me when she finally found her way back.

I start to launch into my "you freaking idiot" speech again but she looks up at me with puppy dog eyes and says,"Please don't hit me!" [Record screech.] WHAT? I would never hit you? Why would you say that?

She went into this hysterical tirade about how her last boss hit her when she did bad things and how her parents hit her when she messed up. It was at this point that I spent the next 30 minutes calming her down and convince her I'm not going to beat her. I comforted her and got her semi-sane before she left for the day. I started feeling sorry for her and questioned my initial reactions. Then my daughter woke up from her nap; sunburned with bites from head to toe. That was the exact moment I realized, the nanny had to go.