Outsourcing

The other day I mentioned that Brenda has started work for me.  A few of you asked what she was doing and I wanted to write a whole post on that so here goes.  This may get wordy and long.  Probably because I have very strong feelings about it and it has taken me a long time to process why I get so feely about this subject.  Ummmm....pregnant.  Anyway...

A couple of months ago Lonnie and I were talking about how we needed a little more help around the house.  Right now we have Juanet that comes and cleans for 4 hours every Tuesday.  We needed more.  I was VERY resistant to this idea.  I always become a little defiant when he has mentioned this before because I guess I feel like it is an attack on me.  It's not and he never broaches it in that manner.  But I am sensitive apparently.  

But as this pregnancy has progressed I realize that he is right.  We do need more help around the house.  And especially more help when the babies come.  My whole thing was I did not want a nanny...like every single human being tells me that I need.  

Have you hired a nanny?  

Who is going to be your nanny?

You are going to need a nanny!

But I couldn't deny that we could use some help around the house and that it would be nice to have another set of hands here during the day when the babes are little.  Because more than likely Lonnie will get a couple of days off if that much and then I will be flying solo.  Little scary.  

We had many a talk about exactly what we would like and how we were going to go about getting it.  He wanted 4 days a week.  I wanted 2 days a week.  He kept calling it a nanny.  That would piss me off.  We can't look for a nanny and then say OH HEY we want you to clean the house, do some laundry, do the dishes and keep me organized.  If you say nanny then they think they are taking care of babies!  IIIII want to take care of the babies and someone else to do all the other crap.  He thought it would be easy to find someone.  I didn't really even know that I would ever let someone into my house to do these things. 

I am not sure exactly what my hang up was.  There were a lot of little things that I thought about so I will just jot them down here.  

• I didn't want anyone in my house.  We have Juanet and that's all I want.
• I don't want to learn how to take care of newborn twins and a 3 year old in front of someone new.  (i.e.not my mom or Lonnie)
• I am supposed to trust someone to watch said newborn twins while I take a nap after not sleeping all night?  Funny.  
• I'd like to have some time to myself.  I mean not just myself.  Myself + children.  But the thought of having someone here everyday sounded like a nightmare to me.  What if I needed a glass of wine at noon?  (JUST KIDDING)  (NOT REALLY)
• I didn't want to feel like I had to "put on" for someone.  Let's be real.  When Blakely was a newborn I walked around in mesh panties for a month and cried every single day.  I felt like if we had someone here during the day with me that I would feel pressure to actually get dressed and act like a normal human being.  (Now that I type this maybe that would be a good thing!)

So all of that.  I am sure I was over thinking it but still.  This is a big deal.  After a while of discussing it I realized that yes, in fact, we do need to find someone.  We made a list, a sort of job description if you will.  I felt like this was important because I didn't want there to be any confusion about what would be expected of this person.  

I think the thing that changed my mind about getting help was that I want to be able to take care of my babies.  I do not want to do the dishes!  Ha!  I would like to focus my attention on my kids and be able to do the things for them that I enjoy doing.  Of course I will have to do house stuff too but the more help I have in that area the better.  I mean we let someone do our yard work because Lonnie doesn't want to do it!  Like Shannon said, outsource when and where possible.

And then we talked to Juanet.  

When we began talking about this my first (and only) thought was that it HAS TO BE JUANET.  No questions.  It has to be her.  She has worked for us for 8 years.  Over that time she has become a very close friend to me.  She knows everything.  I am pretty sure when someone cleans your house for that long they know you better than, well, anyone.  She loves Blakely and she loves these new babies.  She has cried with me through infertility and she has prayed for my babies like they were her own.  She is just one of those people that you know there should be more of in the world.  It had to be her and I knew that she wouldn't be able to do it. 

Because I am not the only one who realizes how awesome Juanet is!  She watches kids on M, W, F and cleans houses on T, TH.  One of the kids she watches is her less than one year old granddaughter and her close friend's son (4).  She is committed to that and I understand that.  Honestly, that is one of the reasons she is so great.  She is not going to leave the people she is close to hanging.  And boy would they be hanging if she left them!  And they would probably come looking for me.  Ha!  But I though we may have a chance to get her to stop cleaning houses on T + TH.  I knew it was a long shot but it was our only shot.  The people she cleans for are her close friends, like me.  She has been cleaning them all longer than me (8 years) except for one.

To make this story a little less of a novel we approached her about the job.  Lonnie and I talked to her about it and let her think about it for a while.  I knew it wasn't going to happen.  I knew she was upset about it.  She wants to do it but she just can't right now.  If it were a year from now then she would be able to make something work.  But right now she just can't.  We talked about the T + TH thing and we worked out where she could come all day Tuesday instead of just 4 hours when the babies come.  That was a start.

Lonnie and I had compromised on having someone come 3 days a week.  So now we just needed to find someone to come those other 2 days.  I seriously had no idea where to start. Juanet also babysits for a lot of different people so I told her if she knew of anyone else of heard anything to let us know.  We let a few other people know what we were looking for as well.  

Not 2 days later we heard about a lady named Brenda.  Juanet had mentioned that an acquaintance of ours (M) had a lady that came to help her out a couple of days a week and she would ask her about it.  Well M's daughter is Blakely's age and they are in the same gymnastics class so I talked to her about it.  I could not believe what she was telling me.  This lady sounded perfect.  M had been using her since her 3rd was born and she told me of 4 other couples that we knew that had used her.  There were a couple of other mom's at gymnastics that were like "Oh are you talking about Brenda?  We LOOOOVE her".  She cleans, she organizes like crazy, she does laundry at no extra charge and she loves kids.  A couple of them said Brenda was the only other person on the planet they would let drive their kids somewhere.  One mom said she was the only person she has let babysit over night.  It was sounding real good.  So I called her up and she came over for an interview.  

Let me tell you I was nervous.  I mean I have never done this before.  But hearing all these other mom's talk about it made me realize that I am not the only person looking for this kind of help.  I wanted her to like us!  She is apparently a hot commodity and she sounded perfect so I was pinning my hopes on this.  And then Brenda strolled through the door and I was instantly put at ease.  She is so nice and sweet.  We talked to her about the things we wanted and she never batted an eye.  She said those are all the things she does for other families so this would be perfect and she wanted to do it.  She wanted more steady work so 2 days a week was great.  She has so much experience with this exact type of job.  She has watched lots of kids of all different ages and she has even taken care of twins before.  The only thing she didn't want to do was every Friday.  You see because she babysits frequently for people who go out of town for the weekend so she wants to leave that option open.  Ummm, hello fine with me.  I wanted to hire her on the spot.  Could she be more perfect?  She literally retired from her job early to do this job and she said she would have done it a lot sooner if she had realized people needed it so much!  

A few days later I called her and we hired her.  We had discussed at the "interview" (I guess you would call it that) what we were looking for immediately and what we wanted when the babies come.

She is going to come once a week starting right now.  So she can get to know our house and Blakely, of course.  If I go on bed rest at any point we want her to start 2 days a week.  And then 2 days a week when the babies come.  

I was really nervous Wednesday for her to come the next day.  I was trying to make a list of things she could do.  Lonnie thinks I am being overly dramatic about all of this.  I tell him he doesn't understand because he isn't the one at home with someone new for 8 hours!  But on Wednesday night he was really sweet and told me that the next day was a big day and he wished he could be there with me.  He could tell I was nervous.  I know it sounds stupid but it is just hard to let someone come into your house and see all your stuff?  Am I right?  Am I the only one who feels this way?  Also, I don't have the twins yet!  It is just me and Blakely so I wasn't really sure what I was going to have her do.  She was coming for 8 hours and there is no way I can stay upright for 8 hours.  I was unsure about saying, Oh I need to go lay down now while you work in my house.  Weird.  But that is why we have her coming one day right now so I can rest when I need to.  It made me feel a little lazy but like Lonnie told me, keeping the babies in is the most important thing right now so I have to do what I have to do.  

She came with me to take Blakely to gymnastics.  I wanted her to know how to do that in case I need her to at some point.  She started some laundry and did the dishes.  She played with Blakely and she organized some of my cabinets.  But the biggest thing she did was she organized my OUT OF CONTROL pantry.  Like took everything out, wiped down the shelves and put every thing back in.  Well not everything...we threw a lot of stuff out and there were a few garage sale items in there as well.  When it was time for B's nap I told her I needed to lay on the couch for a while.  I was getting SO uncomfortable in the kitchen chair.  My back was killing my and my lady parts were a.ch.ing (please don't let that turn up a go.o.gle search).  She was fine with that.  She kept organizing away and would occasionally come in and ask me about a few things.  At one point I thought I might cry.  I need to do these things so bad but I am just not able to physically do them.  This pregnancy  is so very different than Blakely's and I am fine with that.  But it is a little overwhelming to see all the things that need to be done and know that you can't do them.  I told her how much I appreciated how she was helping me and she had no idea how happy it made me.  She said you have no idea how happy it makes me to help you and to do things like this!  So yeah.  She is awesome.  

I know this turned out to be the longest post ever but I didn't want to split it into 2 because...boring.  But it has just been a little bit of a journey for me to accept this help and I still get nervous about it sometimes so I wanted to document.  I am sure in a few months I will look back and laugh at myself!  

Long story short I went from not wanting help to thanking my lucky stars that I found this woman.  She is going to be wonderful for my family.  She already is and she has been here one day.  Thank you universe for sending her my way.