Annie the Nanny

It is 2003. I am at a Seattle coffee shop with the two boys I used to nanny for, then 3 and 5; I am ordering them hot chocolates. We find a Magic 8 ball by the cash register. Annie: Oh, you guys! Check this out – you shake it and ask it a question,…

Have you ever been really afraid of something? Totally terrified that this thing, this event, would be awful and painful and you just didn’t want to experience it… only to find that, when it happened, it wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought it would be? When I was a nanny, I took the boys…

Yesterday marked the release of the long-awaited, long-anticipated fourth chapter in the “Indiana Jones” saga. I probably won’t see it. Not that I have anything against the movie – it’s just that I haven’t been to a movie in months, and haven’t really had the desire. Have movies lost their magic for me? Maybe so….

From 2002 until 2005, I was Annie the Nanny for two little boys in Seattle. The first year was a full-time job, and the next two were part-time as I finished school. These little guys were my funny companions, my paper airplane playmates, the reason that I wanted to pull my hair out and the…

[Overland Park, KS – 92 degrees outside. Annie, Micah, and Tyler in 1990 Honda Accord; A at wheel, M & T in matching side-by-side car seats on back seat. Cookie crumbs and juice boxes litter floorboards; car reeks of residual dog vomit. Vehicle idling at stoplight, next to large grey Buick.] Micah: Whoa. Annie: What?…

Once, I was known far and wide as being Annie the Nanny. Annie the GOOD Nanny. Annie the Nanny who could handle anything that came her way, tirelessly cycling through all of the things one does with kids: play, feed, change, wash, play, read, sing, play, love. There was no problem I could not settle,…