Angels Who Babysit

I just have to brag on my babysitter for a minute. 

 

This woman, makes empanadas with my boys and carries pictures of them around in her phone to show her family, washes all my dishes every time she comes and is the most comforting presence ever. I have a really jumpy nerve around sitters. I babysat SOOOOOooooo much when I was a teen and young adult, you'd think I'd feel so at ease interacting with them but I'm such a paranoid mama. Its the best thing ever, like a-tub-of-ice-cream-to-yourself-after-a-wicked-long-day type of a good thing, to have this wonderful, experienced woman come in and be totally un-rattled by the nakedness of my three year old or the goop smeared on the entryway rug or the 10 board games that are strewn across the living room floor.

 She never criticizes, she just clucks around helping me out and shooing me out of the house and helping the boys get all the things they need. When we come home, the boys are in bed and the house is cleaned up. I remember doing that as a babysitter and I had NO IDEA how wonderful that really was. I mean, I had an inkling but no real clue. To walk into your home and find it better than when you left and a warm welcome and your wild boys all tucked into bed. I want to cry every time.

I'm not sure Luana (not her real name) has any idea how powerfully loving she has been to me, how much my boys have been supported and empowered by her and how much peace she has brought to my soul by accepting our crazy life as it is and just stepping into the stream with me.

She does the most endearing things, lovingly caressing my cast-iron pans and going on about them, feeding our chickens even though I already did earlier because she loves them, complimenting me on my outfit before I go out and telling me that I look sexy and beautiful, telling me all the lovely little things she loves about my sons....even though they did things under her care like smash potted plants, bop each other with golf clubs and stand on the tables. To see someone as they are, to laugh over the absurdity and the hilarity of it all but unequivocally accept them as they really come, with open arms and a mother's heart....I can't tell you how much that is a deep kindness to a mama.

Luana is a saint and I am so indebted to her for loving me and my crazy life, it was just the balm I needed. If you're searching for a good sitter, that doesn't make you tear your house apart cleaning obsessively and feeling mincing and over-careful, wishing you had someone who seemed confident and calming, who gets the crazy but doesn't care....keep looking. I'm not handing out Luana's details but the right one is out there for you and finding really good people is such a valuable and deep thing that I just want to encourage you to keep looking! And if you're a sitter....go above and take notes. May your career be long and your ministry to the souls of ragged mamas a powerful force.