Nanny Chronicles

As an international student, the laws of America suggest that working for the government is illegal – so basically, I’m not allowed a paycheck – which is absurd because how on earth do they expect me to survive in this bloody country?   Oh, trust me, this will be a rant for another blog post.

Nanny Chronicles (Part One)(Of Many)

I have four kids:  Nya* (aged 10), Claudia* (aged 8), Danielle* (aged 7) and Kathleen* (aged 6).  Now of course, being that I am only 23 years of age, these kids are clearly not mine, unless I started popping them out at thirteen – but I do consider them my own when I watch over them; I’m just fortunate enough that by the time I’ve had enough of them, their actual parents take them off my hands (kidding) (kinda).

Now Nya and Claudia are sisters and Danielle and Kathleen are sisters – so the story you are about to read features Danielle and Kathleen, more so Danielle.  With these particular sisters, I only really look after one at a time – rarely do I look after the two of them simultaneously and so, Danielle and I had said our goodbyes to Kathleen and her mother and went on our merry way.  Now, for a six year old, Danielle can be very headstrong.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing unless you’re trying to get her to do something important – but other than that we really get along; just a lovely little girl.

So one day, after school I had taken her to the library to do some work.  I told her it would be better to get it over and done with now, so when we got to her house, we could play.  Luckily, my reasoning was good enough for her and she agreed.  We were there for probably an hour before we left – me telling her to go to the bathroom before we left – she obeyed and we went on our merry way.

At the train station, she insisted we sat down – which kinda annoyed me because where the seats were are so far away from where we should have boarded the train.  I like to get off exactly by the exit at the station, but Little Miss decided that she was too tired to stand.  I decided to make light of my clear irritation by tickling her – which she loved.  She sat, squirming in her seat; her legs were going haywire in the air and she was giggling.  This went on for about a minute, and then she went silent.  Eeriliy silent.  She kinda pushed away from me and looked the other way.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.  Her sudden silence terrified me.  Did she see a dead relative?  Did she remember she had a bill to pay?  What the heck was going on?  She looked at me, on the verge of crying, and said,

“You touched me in my no-no place.”

Wait.  WHAT?!  I guess as I was tickling her and she was all spread-eagle on the bench, I had probably touched her vajayjay.  Great!  Now I was going to jail for child molestation.  I’d get kicked out of the country then thrown into jail.  This was it for me, I was sure of it.

“Did I?” I was still unsure, “oh no!  I’m so sorry!  I didn’t mean to.  Are you okay?”  I was rambling.  I knew I was.  I couldn’t stop; I needed her to know that I didn’t do it purposely.  She turned and looked me square in the eyes,

“Nobody touches me in my no-no place,” she said, in probably the most monotonous voice I’d ever heard from a six year old.

“Of course not!  It was an accident.  It will never happen again! I’m so sorry darling,” then I paused, “nobody has touched you there, right?”

“No.  But it’s okay.  As long as you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“No no!  Never!”  She gave a satisfactory nod and asked if she could play games on my iPod.  At this point, I would have given her my left butt cheek.

Luckily for me our train pulled unto the platform, unluckily for me, the nightmare does not end there.

We were perhaps five minutes into our journey on a packed J-train.  I had Danielle wrap an arm around a pole in the middle of the train while I stood above her.  She was engrossed in the iPod, playing subway surfer or looking at porn – whatever, and I was twiddling on my phone, texting or looking at porn, whatever.  Suddenly, I heard a scream come from under me.

It was actually a mix between a cry and a scream and it stunned everyone on the train.  All eyes were on us as I noticed something really strange.  There was liquid coming from Danielle’s pants as she stared up at me, wide-eyed and still screaming really loudly.  I crouched down in front of her, trying to avoid the still leaking liquid but failing miserably.  For a quick moment, I actually thought her water had broke.

“What’s happening?”  I asked her.

“I’m peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeing.”

She was still crying, still screaming and all eyes were still on us.  Excellent, just what I needed.  An audience.  I remained crouched in front of her.

“Okay, squeeze really tightly sweetheart, hold it all in,” I was pretty much begging her to stop pissing herself on this packed train.  What did this kid drink?  She was still peeing.

She went quiet, “oh, I’m done now.”  She was obviously embarrassed, poor thing.  I assured her that nobody was looking at her and told her to keep playing on my phone.

We still had about ten minutes to go on the train.  It started to stink of kiddy piss and, of course, the pee started to travel up and down the train.  People were looking at me like we were crazy, but what the heck was I supposed to do?  I don’t just carry around towels to mop up pee, you know?  All I could do, was kindly point out to people when her piss was lurking dangerously near their feet or bags, or in one woman’s case, her comforter.

Finally we arrived at our stop and we left the train, leaving a puddle of piss as a passenger as well as a random trail as it had zigzagged up and down the carriage.  Danielle complained the whole way home.

“It itches,” she said, countless times, and then finally, “you know, that’s only ever happened to me one other time.”

Thank sweet SWEET baby Jesus.

Because honestly, honestly, I thought that the incident prior to the incident, the accidental touching of her coochie, had traumatized this poor kid and I had now subjected her to a lifetime pissing herself in public places.

When her mother came home, I told her about the whole incident, from the very beginning.  Thankfully, she assured me everything was okay.  I think the background check she had done before I started working for her reassured her – no record of me being a pedophile, anywhere!

Two days later, Nya, my ten year old, pooped herself in the Chinese shop.

I love my life.  Really.  I do.

*Names have been changed to hide the identity of my kids, can't have them embarrassed when they're older now, can I?

I think I’ve lost my mind, I’m just trying to find it.